


Uptown Boy

by 11dishwashers



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternative Universe - Summer Job, M/M, Summer, they work at foot locker, theyre students
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-09-22
Packaged: 2019-01-04 01:33:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12158883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/11dishwashers/pseuds/11dishwashers
Summary: Dongyoung hates his job at Foot Locker, and his boss's nephew. Donghyuck develops a fascination with pink superstars. Summer!AU.





	Uptown Boy

Dongyoung hadn't been expecting a referee shirt even though it was on the sign. But referees gained a decent amount of respect, and he envied that. Working wasn't his kind of thing, especially not under people, and it turned out that the only type of jobs sixteen year olds could get were the kind that they'd make younger children do if it was legal. He sorted boxes of shoes all day, considering switching his ratty pair of nikes out for them with every cardboard lid flipped, he(childishly)  felt like a starving man serving plate after plate of caviar. Not that he liked caviar; he was too middle class to try it. But anything would do. Tennis shoes. Boater shoes. High heels. 

His boss did everything in multitude. He was a short man who seemed dazzled by the amount of business, as if it was independently run and not a chain brand, and believed in dosh things like 'sales managers' and 'marketing execs', and what he called 'promo', which consisted of huge red sales stickers and free colouring books with kids' shoes. If a person high up in the shoe business chain saw him, they'd laugh- he was just a short sighted pebble on the beach, who couldn't look at the bigger picture. The employees called him Mr. Lee upon request, and sometimes Dongyoung would turn his head up from a sticker gun, even though he was sixteen and the only people who called him 'mr.' were pissed off parents and dentists. 

Mr. Lee had ordered an overwhelming amount of pink superstars, citing some soloist comeback as a sales model- she'd worn them in a video and now they'd 'blow up'. He did like to claim the monopoly when it came to shoe trends. Dongyoung hated this trait the most- he liked to imagine wearing the shoes he'd box when he was feeling pitiful and bored. It wasn't that the superstars were pink, it's just that blockier shoes couldn't suit him as much as he'd imagined it, and that he was bored of thinking about them. They had heavy soles that made his arms threaten to fly off their ball joints after a few hours. 

It was Dongyoung's first job, and he hated it because he thought he was meant to. It paid well enough for someone in the summer of sophomore year. Mr. Lee remained distant and impersonal, which Dongyoung considered a good thing. 

He was stacking up boxes with a small slip of paper which explained the Footlocker's out-there filing system. The supply room was a small maze of metal racks, most of the boxes were bright red, but the fancy shoes came in black boxes instead. There was no way you could manage without memorising every possible move you could make, every possible brand they carried. There were a lot of them. People still bought non-brand, it turned out, even from Footlocker. 

"Yah!" a voice came from behind him. He didn't recognise it immediately, even though Mr. Lee was big on his talking. He was standing behind Dongyoung, who, although he was crouching, didn't feel towered by Mr. Lee. He could see a line of stubble that Mr. Lee missed with his razor from this angle. "Jaehyun, yes?" he asked, trying to make it sound like a statement. He was the type that liked answering more than asking. 

"No, that's another employee you're thinking of," Dongyoung told him. Jung Jaehyun was newer than him; he'd been brought in because he'd work for pocket change on account of his age, just like Dongyoung. The older employees expected them to be walking out of the shop with linked arms after the first day of working together, which didn't make sense at all, considering they'd barely get a word in before getting swamped with more work. Dongyoung wanted to explain that just because they were the same gender and age didn't mean that they were soulmates, or anything. In fact, it made it worse, in some ways. "I'm Dongyoung," he said, trying not to sound eager to correct. The other employees had taken to mixing up their names on purpose. Sometimes, he fell for it. They'd tell him he spoke very scathingly and he’d believe them. 

"Alright, Dongyoung," Mr. Lee didn't apologise or anything, "you're sorting them wrong. The pink shoes go between red and purple, not red and white."

They had this obscure way of sorting colours. Each secondary colour would go between the two primary colour rows that it was composed of- green between blue and yellow, orange between red and yellow, grey between black and white- except there were some irregulars(Dongyoung guessed) that fucked up the whole system and made it all very random. He seethed as he nodded with fake understanding. He tried to slip the whole row out of line by sliding the bottom box out, but the stack was close to toppling so he gave up. He'd do it later, when Mr. Lee stopped breathing down his neck. 

Mr. Lee didn't move a muscle. Dongyoung glanced back at him through his hair, so it went unnoticed. He was watching him in case of a fuck up. "Alright," Dongyoung said, and picked up a box. It was bright orange- he had to open the lid to check the colour. The black boxes all contained darker coloured shoes- that was supposedly what rich people were looking for in their footwear. The pair of shoes inside were pink, and Dongyoung made a show of getting up and walking past a few rows to the red section. He put them down in the right place. Mr. Lee didn't move, again. "Got it," Dongyoung added, looking him in the eyes. This seemed to satisfy him, finally.

He walked off while saying something to himself that sounded a bit like "weird kid", all unfondly. Thank god, Dongyoung thought, moving back to the pile of unstacked boxes. 

 

At the end of most days, he'd go seek Mr. Lee out, who was usually in his work cave that had been made out of a small ass room in the back. He'd tell Mr. Lee that he'd done a great deal, and that he was satisfied with a full day of work. Even if he never worked full days. Mr. Lee would smile and tell him good job, Jaehyun. Sometimes Dongyoung corrected him. He worked more hours than Jaehyun, and wanted it to be known. 

He often wondered if Jaehyun ever got called Dongyoung. Unlikely. Jaehyun was friendly, he got along with most of the other workers, which there weren't too many of, but still. He didn't get along with Dongyoung, not really. They weren't enemies or anything. They weren't even from different worlds. Jaehyun was in his school, his year, and he spent most of his time dicking around in the art room and giving girls fake numbers. He wore polo shirts even though they didn't have a uniform, or any upperclass students who could pull them off, for that matter. He made tubey tan shorts look good. He rocked his disgusting perm. It was unfair, really. It was as if the semi-glorification of the Western world had rubbed off from him when he moved over to Seoul, and people wanted to steal some of it for themselves. Or maybe he wore some really good cologne. Dongyoung had never been close enough to tell. He'd probably feel too humbled in the presence of a celebrity to use his senses, anyway. How could he  _ breathe _ in Jaehyun's air?

So, Dongyoung was bitter. But he was making his way through his career with honest work. And that had to count for something, however small that something was. 

He was about to stack a final box when he realised that the time was up. He left the box precariously hanging halfway off the top one, even though he could've done the full job, in all honesty. The store room wasn't dark, though the customers often saw it as just that. 

You couldn't tell if there was an employee there by looking. The rows swallowed up the entire room, until it looked like a bureaucrat's office for cardboard alone. You couldn't see anything in that organised mess. If the white lights were on from the ceiling, it meant there was someone in the jungle. Often, you'd turn a corner to see an employee sitting on the floor in front of their forgotten work, on their phone. The lighting was bright enough to take selfies in. If it was more yellow, you could pretend you were standing in front of a wall of bright orange boxes outside, not inside. 

Dongyoung saw Jaehyun on his way out of the room; he was following employee protocol by sending an extremely well-angled selfie, from the looks of things. He didn't smile in photos. Dongyoung's seen him enough times to pick up on his technique. First, he'd turn his chin slightly to the left so the light would pick up on his cheekbones and his eyes would seem bigger than they actually were. Dongyoung thought, who was he fooling? These girls saw him everyday in school anyway. Jaehyun would then run a hand through his hair to mess it up in a "cute" way, before doing something that was kind of like smirking, but also kind of indifferent. Snap. Delivered: 16 seconds ago.

Dongyoung tread lightly past him. He didn't want to trigger a cutscene. 

He didn't go on his phone in the store room. There was only one girl on his contacts list, and Dongyoung was far past the point of charming Sooyoung. She practically worshipped the ground he stepped on, but he'd never been intersted in her as anything more than a close friend. High school days really were the worst of your life, he thought- so much boringness and arguments and when someone pretty finally likes you, it's a girl. 

He switched off the lights, remembered that Jaehyun was there, and switched them on again before he left. 

Mr. Lee was in the back room, poking at some dubious files in big brown binders. A dozen colourful labels peeked out over the top of the pages and he ran a finger down them, like he was trying to produce noise. He didn't notice Dongyoung for a few seconds. He barely even noticed the boy sitting on the chair across from him. 

Dongyoung almost didn't see him, either- the boy was short and filled the chair about as well as water fills a sieve. 

"I'm a hard worker," he said to Mr. Lee. His voice was nasally and full of smooth tones, like he was hitting notes too fast, rather than a grating sound. He was facing away from Dongyoung. For all Dongyoung saw, he was just a talking mass of brown hair.

Mr. Lee sighed and dropped the accordion file on the table. It landed with a soft 'thud', right by his mug full of pens, and they made cutlery noises as they hit the edges of the ceramic. "Donghyuck, we both know that's not true..." then his eyes flicked up to meet Dongyoung's, "Oh, sorry Jaehyun, I didn't see you there."

"It's Dongyoung. Jaehyun's still working," Dongyoung tried to tell him softly. He wasn't sure if Mr. Lee was aware of how shit his memory was, after all. And he didn't want to be the cause of that realisation. 

"Right, of course," it didn't sound very 'of course' at all, "You're done for the day?"

"Yes, all done now."

There was a pause. The boy, Donghyuck(if Mr. Lee had gotten his name right), had turned in his chair. He looked over at Dongyoung with his wide eyes, like a doe. He had a young face that was almost too gentle to look at- his hair was messy in some ways- his lips curved like a maths function. Then he opened his mouth.

"You can go now," he said. Mr. Lee coughed. 

"That's enough from you, Donghyuck. Although he is right..."

Dongyoung nodded, embarrassed. He kicked his feet against the floor on the walk out. Byulyi was at the register, and she gave him an odd look in the split second before the automatic doors slid open. Her deal, was that she thought herself to be the cooler older sister of the store, which didn't make a lot of sense as she was just twenty and funding her way through college. One of her hands was laid out intentionally like a glove, slipping off the side of the counter. She flexed the other hand by ghost pressing random buttons occasionally. She liked numbers; they suited her well. 

Her eyes flickered away from Dongyoung after the smallest timeframe known to man. She didn't care about anyone in her life. It wasn't her fault, Dongyoung thought, she might not know how to care at all. 

He was standing at his bus stop before he knew it. The Footlocker wasn't in a shopping center, just one of those driveby, suburban city blocks. The shopping district contained mostly restaurants that old ladies like to bitch in, and a charity shop or two. It didn't take a whole lot of effort to get to. Getting home was the worst part, as Dongyoung could choose when to leave the house, but after work he was left waiting for the bus with nothing to do. 

He was listening to a japanese tape. He wasn't really a fan of japanese music, but sometimes you didn't want to understand what you were hearing, and sometimes listening to english music made him gravely tired. He wished he only listened to music without any words at all. It'd make things so much simpler. 

At home, he didn't do much of anything. His apartment block was clouded in permanent grey smoke, like it emanated pollution, which it probably did. It had small, depressing windows that overlooked a mainish road. Red bricks, like an old school building. He lived on the fourth floor. There was a balcony, but it was more hanging out of the building than being supported by it. His father had a herb garden growing on it. Whenever they ate the sprocket leaves, they tasted like nicotine. 

It was the definition of temporary housing. And not just because they were renting. 

Dongyoung walked through the living room as quickly as he could. His shoes left charred footprints, from where he walked under the trees, during Summer they got stripped of all these gunky, sappy leaves that clogged up the sidewalks and grates in the curbs. They stuck to his soles all the way back. Mushy petals were practically magnetic. 

He didn't have a close relationship with his bedroom. It was quite bare, to be completely honest with you. There never seemed a reason to do anything with it, as well as the simple fact that Dongyoung had nothing to put on his walls anyway. He flopped onto his bed and loaded a snap from Sooyoung before deciding to leave it unopened. 

There never seemed to be anything to do in the Summer, anyway. Why should he feel guilty for taking a rest?

 

~~~~

 

Dongyoung was in the front of the store. This was rare for him- the younger employees were mostly ordered to do the tough work, since they had no idea how much they should be getting payed for it and would take anything, but Myungsoo had called in sick. 

Dongyoung was surprised that Jaehyun hadn't been picked instead of him for a whole twenty seconds before he spotted him walking by the window, on lunch break. His black hoodie looked so out of place on him, as it wasn't gold. He was with some girl who he'd claim was "just a friend" for a while before tonguing her done, probably. 

Dongyoung turned to the woman he was helping. She didn't have an eye for shoes, as far as Dongyoung could tell- she was wearing oversized sunglasses, the kind you saw on the red carpet. They were white with gold rims, like a Nativity blanket, with a little bow on the bridge. Dress up accessories.

She had three black boxes stacked next to her. They all had the same shoe; Giuseppe Zanotti, dark blue. 

"I quite like the ribbon," she hummed, inspecting the pair on her own feet. They wouldn't go with anything, Dongyoung thought, but then again, he was never a fashion oriented person. He smiled at her.

"They suit you," he lied. They wouldn't suit anyone. Except for, maybe, Jaehyun. He was that kind of guy. 

She had an ugly laugh, her mouth made a small rectangular shape like she had no lips, and she'd make these small inhaling noises through her nose. Borderline snorting. "I'm worried the bows will look childish," she said then. Dongyoung smiled wider.

"They're the best part," he told her, eager to move onto the next person. it wasn't that he had any problems with this woman specifically. It was moreso the fact that she'd been expecting him to act like a reassuring friend rather than a sales assistant, and it made him feel a bit sick and uncomfortable. He could barely act friendly with his actual friends, for crying out loud. And he couldn't tell her to stop, or he'd get probably get fired. 

"Do you really think so?"

"Sure," Dongyoung replied, which was the wrong thing to say. She hummed again and slipped the pair off before replacing them with the bowless one.

"They look great on you," Dongyoung said. 

She must have thought she was being flirted with by a high school boy, and found it very flattering, and a little naive, as she laughed again and said, "I'll take them."

Dongyoung watched her go with relief, just as someone tapped on his shoulder. He turned to be met with a familiar face that he couldn't put with a name, no matter how much he wracked his brain. The boy was shorter than him, younger too. He looked up at Dongyoung, though not in the same way that Mr. Lee had to(begrudgingly) do. He looked up through thick eyelashes, like flat paint brushes were glued to his eyelids, and some of them were blonde, they shone very slightly under the artificial lighting. He looked bored, but it seemed put on. Dongyoung stared at him. He should've said something, but he didn't think to. Not that there was anything particularly special about this boy, he just really, really didn't fare well with people around his age. 

The boy didn't wait for him to offer help, anyway, "I'm looking for shoes," he told Dongyoung. His voice was what had Dongyoung remembering his name- it was Donghyuck, wearing a faded grey t shirt and running shorts and shoes with no socks, standing too close. Dongyoung moved back, irritated. 

"Duh," he replied without thinking. He really  _ was _ scathing. Donghyuck seemed unaffected. By the way his eyes widened slightly, he was amused. 

"You're meant to ask me what kind," he said then. What a brat, just like yesterday. He was already getting on Dongyoung's nerves- such a freshman. 

"What kind of shoes were you looking for?"

Donghyuck propped his chin up with the curve of his thumb, and seemed to think about it. He was looking at the walls of display cases. Once, they had racks, but it wasn't convenient enough, or something. Dongyoung didn't work there back then, he just remembered from passing it by on his way to the department store. 

Donghyuck stepped closer to the case on the left, and trailed a hand along the spine of the glass, where it split in two down the middle. It left four long streaks and one slightly shorter one, unsettling the skin of dust. 

He turned back to look at Dongyoung, like he was hunting for a reaction as he said "Pink superstars." They weren't even in the case he was standing by.

"Pink all over or just pink stripes?" Dongyoung asked.

"I'd like to try both, I think."

Dongyoung inwardly groaned as he pulled the key, that Mr. Lee insisted the employees wear  around their necks, out from beneath his black shirt. It was warm like his skin in his hands. He walked to the girls section and fiddled with the key in the lock before turning it over, he never had to open the displays enough to figure out which side, but it was the one without any visible grooves- a backwards lock. The cover slid open and he took out both pairs. 

When he turned around, Donghyuck was already seated on one of those ottoman islands, waiting for him. He had one leg resting on the other, foot pointed outwards. 

"Those won't be my size," he said without batting an eye.

"What size are you?"

"Sixteen and a half," Donghyuck said boredly.

"These are sixteen and a half."

"I don't think so."

Dongyoung walked over and pulled back the tongue to show him the label. In plain print- 16.5. 

"Oh," Donghyuck said, not seeming as embarrassed as Dongyoung thought he'd be. He reached down and untied his laces before leaving his pair of knockoff Nikes to one side. They were a maroon colour, with all those tiny, ruffley fibers that came out of the fabric and looked dotty. Dongyoung was sort of jealous, to be honest. He handed Donghyuck the pair with the laces already undone. 

"Could you tie the laces for me?" Donghyuck asked once they were slipped on.

Dongyoung did as he was told. 

"What do you think of them?" Donghyuck stood up and started walking up and down with them, arms swinging obnoxiously. He'd pass the narrow mirrors and crane his head to stare at them. They looked just a tad too big for him, and the colours(pink stripes only) didn't exactly complement his outfit, but he had a photoshoot look about him, if Dongyoung was honest. It was a daring combination, one that a fashion icon, or a blind girl, might follow-- but Donghyuck looked just fine in it. 

"They're nice," Dongyoung said mildly. Donghyuck seemed pleased with that. He paraded around the store some more, searching the room as if he'd find a paparazzi with a cameraphone. What he found was Mr. Lee stepping out of the backroom, arms folded, annoyed. 

"Lee Donghyuck," he called, voice raising an octave on the 'ee' sound. A few customers turned to look at him, but the shop was on the emptier side. Mr. Lee rarely had shame when it came to how he ran his business, anyway. Dongyoung watched as Donghyuck's shoulders raised stiffly with surprise. He turned, and his face was flushed pink, like he'd been caught crossdressing, or something. "Didn't I tell you to run an inventory check?" In non-boss language, that meant to count the shoes and fill out the numbers on in a small grid. Why he asked Donghyuck to do this, Dongyoung didn't know. But he was interested-- he picked up the shoes Donghyuck had yet to try on, and left his Nikes in a parallel line to each other, just by the ottoman. He pretended to be putting the shoes away, stuffing the toes back full of the brown sandpaper, while listening in. 

"You shouldn't even have this job," Mr. Lee said, exasperated. "You have to make an effort and behave, even more than the other employees." His voice grew fainter as he opened the backroom and stepped into it, Dongyoung heard the door latch. He assumed Donghyuck was following as his voice was faint too. 

"I know and I'm sorry, Uncle Lee-" Uncle Lee?" "-I'll make a bigger effort starting now, if you'll just let me go back to work now."

Dongyoung could hear Mr. Lee's sigh, from across the shop, even. "Okay, but don't let me catch you horsing around again," he was  _ exactly _ the type to say 'horsing around', Dongyoung thought- like your average sitcom dad with a bad combover, and probably, bad breath. 

"Thank you, Uncle Lee," Donghyuck said as the door closed. Dongyoung was still facing away, but he could kind of hear him walking over to collect his shoes and put them back on. He came over after with the pink superstars he'd been wearing in his arms.

"Thanks for all the help, Jaehyun," he said as he handed the shoes over.

"It's Dongyoung."

"Oh, sorry. Mr. Lee called you Jaehyun yesterday," Donghyuck said, eyes bright with amusement. He wasn't sorry at all. "Thanks for all the help, Doyoung-"

"Dongyoung-"

"-That's what I said," Donghyuck lied, smiling.

"You said Doyoung," Dongyoung pointed out, although he was past the point of caring. He was already walking back to the glass case, wondering what time it was.

"I was close though," there was a pause, and then, "thanks for all the help, Dongyoung."

"No problem," Dongyoung watched as Donghyuck left to the supply room, no glances back. His mouth was hanging open. He closed it and searched for a customer to help. 

 

~~~~

 

He went the next two days without even seeing Donghyuck, or Jaehyun for that matter; life was looking up. 

One of those days was his day off, where he'd gone instead of his mother to pick his cousin up. His mother had been feeling offweather, supposedly, which was always bad and always expected from her. She couldn't help it, most of the time. 

His cousin, a slightly older boy named Johnny, had come over from Chicago for some of the summer and was basically being passed around from house to house, sleeping on his cousin's sofabeds.  He spent his first day with Dongyoung, who felt bad about it- his estate was one of the more boring ones. 

Dongyoung took him out to the shopping district and tried to avoid the street where Footlocker was on. It wasn't like in a drama, where you could pop into work and everyone would greet you fondly and you could hang out for a bit, or shop under an employee discount. They ended up in some hipster coffee shop, and Dongyoung had chewed on his wooden stirrer as he watched Johnny send selfie after selfie to Sooyoung. He'd given him his phone out of guilt- it was a boring day. 

Johnny was good enough at keeping up two conversations at once; one where he flirted with Sooyoung, and one where he talked about how hot Sooyoung was to Dongyoung. By the end of it, Dongyoung had at least four splinters embedded in his tongue. 

Then they just caught the bus home, where Johnny wrinkled his nose as the apartment block came into view. He hadn't seen it yet, even though he had to carry his two ton backpack around all day. 

Dongyoung thought they might have had sketchier apartments in Chicago. He guessed he was wrong. 

Johnny dropped his bag in his room and asked Dongyoung if there was a place where he could smoke, and when Dongyoung couldn't reply, they went to the roof for lack of anywhere else. 

The city looked nicer than usual when right before night. It had so much glass, from windows, from storefronts, from shiny cars, that it seemed to light up even without all the neon. Johnny snapped a picture of it to Sooyoung, taking a long drag. He was nice enough, Dongyoung supposed. He had good korean, and money, and shoes that weren't falling apart, and a summer occupied by various events and trips. Dongyoung was a little jealous. 

They went indoors again, and Johnny had pulled a Gameboy Colour out of his bag. 

"Do you have any Pokemon games?" he had asked Dongyoung, who shook his head. He did have some, but he'd rather just watch mindless tv than play them. He must have seemed very boring. 

They had slept in different rooms that night. Thank god, Dongyoung was burnt out from all the conversation earlier. He hated that feeling you got when you were obligated to please someone. 

 

He'd been relieved the next day when he showed up to work, which was a once in a blue moon sort of thing. But one foot into the store and Mr. Lee had already come over with some gridded paper-

"I need you to do an inventory check," he'd said, forcing the sheet into Dongyoung's reluctant hands. So Donghyuck had fucked up his check, huh? 

Dongyoung spent the whole day under the white lights of the store room, flipping open box after box. By the end of it he considered becoming a cave hermit. He wouldn't need money, just a spear to hunt with. Then he was out under the sunlight again, seeing real people and not just empty pairs of shoes, and he was still playing that japanese disc, and he thought it hadn't been  _ too _ bad. If only because there was minimal contact with Jaehyun, who he was intimidated by. He could barely believe they worked in the same establishment. 

And Donghyuck. He even knows where he was? Dongyoung didn't let himself think about it too much. 

Johnny, along with his cigarettes and styled hair, was gone when Dongyoung got back from work. He felt the absence in the sitting room. It was just him now. 

He'd retreated to his room. At least that place was meant to fit one person. 

So all this lead up to Thursday. Dongyoung showed up to work like a mule yet again, and he spotted someone putting up sale signs through the glaringly sunny window. He inhaled through his nose- not to smell, but because he was pissed off. The place would be packed. He'd more than likely never see his family again. 

Inside the store, Donghyuck had dragged a footstool over to the windows so he could reach high enough to paste a decal on. All good things came to an end, Dongyoung reminded himself.

Unlike on Monday, Donghyuck actually had his staff uniform. The required black shirt was too big for him, likely the smallest size- it was a little too big on Dongyoung too. On Donghyuck, it seemed to all bunch down at the point where he'd tucked it into a pair of black jeans. You could almost see the two chords on the back of his knees pushing up through the fabric of them. He ran a hand over the smooth surface of the sales decals, and dropped it back to his side. For a moment he just stood on the stool, like he'd never be that high up again, like he was looking down at the world. And then he was stepping off, glancing at Dongyoung with his doe eyes. Dongyoung had missed how pretty he was the first time somehow. It must've been because he was talking. 

He looked over to the display cases. He didn't want to stare, and more importantly, he didn't want Donghyuck to catch on to it. The shoes were facing outwards like the rows of cages in the pound. The tips all pointed outwards, accusing. Dongyoung felt the key cold against his front. 

"Good morning," said Donghyuck. They were now standing side by side. Dongyoung had barely noticed at all. "Hey," he then said, "I met that guy who everyone thinks is you yesterday."

"Jaehyun?" Dongyoung moved over a few centimeters, practically peeling himself off Donghyuck's side. 

"No, Dongyoung."

Dongyoung frowned at him. 

A thing he didn't understand was how the employees, although they viewed him and Jaehyun like two halves of one cheesy high school friendship that they had back in the day, they never treated Dongyoung and Donghyuck the same way. They were around the same age, and their personalities clashed majorly, which was what the employees found so funny about Dongyoung and Jaehyun. Either way he was grateful. But he did question whether he'd prefer it to Jaehyun or not. At least he could talk to Donghyuck. If he had to talk to golden boy Jaehyun, he'd probably freeze up like a Medusa statue. 

He always found it easier to talk to people that were shorter than him, anyway. It was probably the only reason why he could stand Mr. Lee at all. 

"Just kidding. Of course I know your name."

"What is it?"

"Dongyoung," Donghyuck smiled, and Dongyoung was honestly surprised that he'd remembered. Before he could say anything to that, the back room door had swung open with a minor creaking noise. 

Mr. Lee stepped halfway into the storefront, halfway out. His skin was pink, face in particular, like a fattened pig. He scanned the room. Even though it was in very general directions, Dongyoung couldn't help but feel singled out- he flinched. Mr. Lee often wasn't scary, but he could be on one of his good days. If he stayed the way he'd been before all the time, the store would've been ran by the cashiers within a week's notice. 

His eyes snapped back to Dongyoung. 

"Jaehyun, come here," he said. Donghyuck snorted. Dongyoung was too freaked out to correct him as he walked over. Then- "You too, Donghyuck."

In hindsight, it must have been because they were standing next to each other. Not many people worked from opening hours, so there wasn't much to choose from, but still- there was Myungsoo who was making up for when he'd been sick, and Sohee chewing gum(loudly) at the counter, and Jaehyun dicking around in the store cupboard. 

Dongyoung did all the grunt work. They  _ needed _ him. He didn't understand why Mr. Lee had assigned him to waste time like so; he must've just been the first person Mr. Lee had laid eyes upon. 

After Donghyuck had practically skipped over, Mr. Lee looked between the two of them. Oh crap. They were in trouble.

"Jaehyun, this is Donghyuck, he's a new employee. I want you to show him how to shelf deliveries. Just teach him the ropes and then leave him to deal with it on his own, okay?" Guess not. Dongyoung had forgotten he literally hadn't done anything wrong. Mr. Lee just made it feel like you could've in your sleep, or something. 

Dongyoung told him that sure thing, he could teach Donghyuck the "ropes" of the job. Even though that was a lie. It wasn't a sure thing, it'd be hard to get Donghyuck to take the whole thing seriously, and he'd burn through a lot of his energy real quick. 

He hadn't slept much the night before. He never did, really. He never could. Dreaming was easy, but switching your brain off was hard. He'd scoured for some new music on spotify and came up with nothing. He'd read through those screenshots of funny tweets that got reposted everywhere. He'd wrapped his headphone cord around his fingers for a long time, just lying there, wrapping and winding and doubling over and cutting off his blood circulation. 

He didn't have the patience for this. He was barely standing, as it was. 

Donghyuck grinned at him, even as he pushed the door open and flicked the light switch he was looking back. Watching for a reaction. Dongyoung didn't have much to offer when it came to those. He pushed past him, looking for the pile of boxes he'd have to deal with.

 

"No-" Dongyoung sighed and rubbed his temples. "If they're green, they go between the yellow and blue ones."

It occurred to him that the system was pretty hard to get a grasp on, and he shouldn't be as frustrated with Donghyuck's lack of progress as he was, but hey. He thought he deserved a little bit of negative emotions after his long night. 

Donghyuck didn't even seem to notice, and that probably said something about how Dongyoung came off, to be honest. He flipped the lid up, a pair of pink superstars were pushed into the bedding of the box.

Closing the lid, "Watch this, Dongyoung," he stood up from his position on the floor and moved to put the box with the rest of the pink shoes. He was grinning when he turned around then, his teeth were exceedingly white and Dongyoung thought he might have to get a pair of oversized sunglasses to even look at it. So he didn't. The linoleum floor didn't prove to be more interesting, just more viewable. 

"Good job," Dongyoung told him sincerely, though it sounded sarcastic. 

Donghyuck was more than capable of working now, even though he didn't understand the system at all. That was all the understanding Dongyoung had when he started-- he liked to think he was doing okay. It mattered to no one if he killed the job cleanly or not, as long as it didn't survive for someone else to take care of. There it was; the ropes. 

Donghyuck sat on the floor next to Dongyoung again. He was wearing the same shoes, with more mud staining the rubber soles this time.He sneezed into his hand, and it was squeaky but not as bad as Dongyoung's own sneeze. Dongyoung seemed to have the worst of anything audible. Except for singing voice, to an extent- but no one had to know that. 

In elementary school, it was discovered pretty quickly that he could shatter the screen in the Noraebang with his voice. Well, maybe not to that particular extent, but he did pretty fucking well in it, and his friends noticed. And that lead to a lot of "Dongyoung's really good at singing, actually! C'mon Dongyoung, sing for us!", which he wouldn't have a problem with,  if it wasn't so embarrassing. He'd blame his friends if asked about it. If people asked him to sing he'd tell them he had a head cold, and that was also his excuse for missing school as much as he did. 

He was always worked up over something- his character. A flatnote. 

Right now, it was how Donghyuck wasn't saying anything. Lord knows why this bothered him, but it did. The silence was so loud that Dongyoung drummed his fingers against one of the boxes just to ground him. 

He didn't really know Donghyuck; he wasn't sure why he expected him to talk. 

He wanted to know something, wanted to test something. "So, what year are you in anyway?" he asked. Like Mr. Lee, he preferred answering. Actually, he preferred not speaking at all.

He wasn't shy, or an introvert, he just thought being mute made life easier most of the time- no chance of offending anyone with a closed mouth. 

"Going into Sophomore year," Donghyuck replied, picking up a labelling machine. He was probably wondering why they didn't use them- it was a lot easier than this stupid memory game. The labelling machine was small and could be used with one hand, one grip, one flick of the thumb. There was the sticker backs that looked, and felt, like laminated toilet paper- stickers plain white with space to scribble stuff on. Donghyuck shifted so one of his knees was peaked upwards, then he clicked a sticker down onto it. It looked almost like an obscenely bleached plaster.

He had very tan skin. Dongyoung hadn't really thought about it before but compared to the sticker, it was much darker, almost gold. 

"That sucks," Dongyoung said, he didn't have to recall his sophomore year to make such a statement. He'd lived it, and it left a mark in small ways. It was full of bloodshot assignments and pressure and boredom. His year had became fish wriggling about in a barrel, being shot at with a gun. They deserved it. Teachers only hated them because they were the worst. 

He kept watching Donghyuck as he picked at the edges of the label with his square cut fingernails, until it finally peeled off with a quiet ripping sound. It fell onto the ground, with lots of black threads stuck to it from the jeans. They were twisted and smushed together like worms.

Donghyuck put another three labels in a line down his shins. "Why would it suck?" 

Something hit Dongyoung just then. "Wait, you're a freshman? Then you're fifteen?" he said instead of responding.

"Yep, until next week."

Dongyoung's eyes widened. "How are you allowed to work?"

"Mr. Lee is my uncle, my mam wanted me to work, I'm here," Donghyuck dropped the sticker machine in his lap and looked at Dongyoung, who was taken offguard again.

"Well, aren't you special," Dongyoung said, even though he didn't mean to. Donghyuck snorted and leaned over, with a click, there was a sticker on Dongyoung's left cheek. He went red- he was sure of it. 

Donghyuck let his hand linger so close, until it started twitching from being held up in the air- only then did he pull it away. "Don't talk about things you know nothing about," he said. 

Dongyoung stared at him as he felt another label getting pressed against his left hand, which was resting on his knee. 

"Just kidding," Donghyuck said, "You look stupid as fuck."

Dongyoung glared at him, but he couldn't quite bring himself to peel the labels off. It was better to look terrible than to risk an unpredictable(but probably offended) reaction from Donghyuck, who had since fished a pen out of his pocket and started drawing on everything that wouldn't get him in trouble. His tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth, upwards, as he doodled, like he was really concentrating on not screwing it up. 

He started drawing on Dongyoung's hand- just on the label, with his hand hovering as much as possible, but it was inevitable that their skin would brush against each other anyway. Dongyoung was embarrassed. It was his most common emotion.

Donghyuck pulled away and capped the marker, he'd drawn a Rilakkuma with surprisingly stable lines. Dongyoung probably couldn't manage that with a compass, his motor control was abysmal. 

"Cute," he said, and Donghyuck looked at him as if he'd just told a blatant lie. "But never do that again," the look fell from his face, like he'd been expecting Dongyoung to say that all along.

"Buzzkill," Donghyuck said, pausing before speaking again. "Hey, you're actually meant to be teaching me stuff, not slacking off."

"You were the one who took out the weapon," Dongyoung pointed out.

"It's a sticker gun."

"And you were the one who took it out. If you really want to work, you should ask Mr. Lee," Dongyoung felt pretty happy with his statement as he stood to start working through the same old pile of deliveries again. Before he could even take a step, Donghyuck was whining. 

"I don't want to work, Dongyoung, please," he said, stretching the vowels. He was looking up so his eyes squinted from the overhead lights. He was terrible at doing puppy eyes, but maybe that was more pathetic than the puppy eyes anyway, so it worked in a roundabout way. 

Dongyoung hesitated, even though common sense would've been good right now, thanks. "I have to sort the boxes or I'll get fired, or something," Dongyoung told him, which sounded like he'd considered it and realised he couldn't slack off with Donghyuck. That was bad-- Dongyoung should've shutten it down immediately. Now Donghyuck would think he was getting under his skin. Which he was, but he didn't need to know that. 

Donghyuck groaned like he had no idea that having a job meant he'd have to work. "Of course you'd do your job. Of course," he stood up and dusted off his front even though it hadn't come into contact with the floor at all. The sticker gun was left on top of one of the stacks, halfway used up, with a ribbon of the wasted backs curling out of it. "Alright, guess I'll help you, but don't expect much."

Dongyoung didn't need to say that he hadn't even expected Donghyuck to help at all. 

When he looked down at what he was doing, he saw the Rilakkuma on his hand, and felt oddly light. Something about it. 

As he saw the sun through the automatic doors, he remembered that his father would be home tonight.

His father was shorter than him, not that Dongyoung was tall. Both of his onesided father figures(in that they thought too highly of themselves and their meaning to Dongyoung) were just stunted in their growth. 

He wasn't sure about Mr. Lee, but it was the alcohol that did it for his dad. Not that that was any of his business. He didn't want it to be, it was in the past, his father would come home and flip up the tab on a black can with a gold crest. Dongyoung would see him if he opened his door late at night, in the living room, on the brown leather sofa. He'd hear the click of the tin, see how his father's neck bended backwards to let the alcohol slip down his esophagus quickly. For a while, Dongyoung thought he had stopped as he'd began to mix vodka with liter bottles of pepsi in a glass tumbler. He thought the caffeine was a coping mechanism, but not because it helped the vodka sting less. 

Then it was whiskey. 

There was a lot of controversy over that one. 

Dongyoung stood in front of the glass doors for a few extra seconds, hesitating by them until it felt weird to not go home, which was really the aim. 

He heard someone calling his name just before he'd taken a step outside, but it was only Donghyuck saying goodbye. It hadn't struck him as odd at the time, even though they weren't friends or anything.

He was sitting on the bus when he remembered. He was at the back, facing the opposite way from where they were headed. The seats were warm from the sun and the air was dusty. 

He still had the sticker on his face, he realised- son of a bitch.

He waited too long before taking it off, to the point where it freaked him out a little bit. 

And the other one... He couldn't peel it off. Rilakkuma frowned at him, like it knew how he was feeling. 

Dongyoung sighed and looked out the window again. 

He got off near Sooyoung's estate, almost subconsciously. The houses were even and perfectly spaced apart, like they were from a sims game. She lived in a nicer part of town, where the grass grew to the perfect length and the cars all wore a silver coat like it was a uniform and the trees didn't grow naturally, and Dongyoung didn't feel like he belonged anywhere but in Sooyoung's room. One step out and he was a mutt. One step in and he was a sheltered mutt. 

He fiddled with his wires in the headphone jack as he walked, turning the L shaped rubber part that slotted in anticlockwise. It was still sunny out, even though it felt like it wasn't. 

He opened the gate with one hand, some old point flaked off in the palm of his hand and smudged black against his skin, like he'd been writing with an inky pen all day. Sooyoung saw him through her bedroom window- she was always by it in the summer. She didn't have many friends, or many callings. There wasn't much else to do in uncomfortably hot suburbia. 

The front door flew open, and she was still in her pyjamas, that were baggy and covered in little ironed designs of owls. She had dyed her hair in late May- red. It was fading to pink at the tips, but at the roots it was dark from where she hadn't been bothered to re dye, and she ran a hand above them as she walked over, face red. Not this again, Dongyoung thought. It wouldn't have been hard to believe if she'd moved onto Johnny.

It wasn't that Dongyoung thought of her any different, it was just that he had to act different around her. Be more on guard. He wasn't meant to know that she liked him, after all- he had to consciously make an effort not to let her presume things. She already presumed that he liked girls, probably. If he hugged her while saying goodbye she could jump to her own conclusions, and subsequently, into his flustered arms. 

He wouldn't want that. 

When he was a freshman, he couldn't understand why it was impossible to like her back. If one good thing came out of sophomore year, it was that he knew more now- that he'd grown. 

"Hey," she said when they were facing each other on the garden path, and her neighbour was mowing the lawn over the garden wall, he was young like them. He was terrible at mowing in straight lines, and Dongyoung wondered if he had cut his own hair as  _ it _ didn't have any straight lines either. The boy was watching Sooyoung when he could, which was always. She wouldn't look over- only ever at Dongyoung's face or the ground. 

He probably liked her, or he was laughing at her pyjamas, Dongyoung couldn't be sure. But it made him uncomfortable, knowing a set of eyes were constantly looking over. Another one. 

"Can I come in?" he asked Sooyoung, who just looked at him and nodded. Of course.

It was late when he decided to go. It was more because he had to than anything else, but if he went home now his father might be too tired to talk to him. His mother wouldn't give out to him then, because she'd understand why he didn't want to go home anyway. 

Sooyoung blew on her nails, her shimmery blue paint was still drying. She always got it so precise, and she told Dongyoung that sometimes girls complimented her on it and she felt fake. He didn't understand why until he say her cutting up masking tape to scaffold the her fingernails with. She waved a hand madly, and it made motion streaks, looking like it might fly off from her wrist and cut through you like a shuriken.

"You're leaving?" she asked quietly. She had always been so soft spoken, and it came through in her singing voice too, but it wasn't a bad thing. It was one of her charms. Someone might really fall for it one day, just as the choir instructor had when he picked her out of their compulsory singing class. 

"I have to," was what Dongyoung said. It was all that needed. She paused and looked at him, and her eyes- they were so glassy, like a doll's. The room was dim, the only light came from her desk lamp. It tinted her retinas orange. 

The corners of her mouth beaded when she smiled. "Text me if you're bored sometime, and we can hang out," she said, opening the door to lead him out. He expected some cheesy speech to cheer him up, but she didn't deliver, and he wasn't about to ask-- he preferred it when they were quiet. Some friendships were like that. 

His father was gone when he got back. Dongyoung had no idea where. He just continued on as if there wasn't anything missing.

 

~~~~

 

You could feel his birthday in the air.

Dongyoung had forgotten that he'd even mentioned it, but he took a step into the store and it struck him on the back of his head. There weren't any banners up, or streamers, or confetti, or even pavement rice, it was technically a "highly regarded establishment of business", as the Footlocker inspector woman had called it.

The air was different. It was like Donghyuck, which didn't mean his lynx or his strawberry chewing gum, but rather the way he was, and how people hated him for it. He hadn't taken well to the other workers, which surprised Dongyoung at first, until he realised that he didn't exactly take to Donghyuck either- why should he? Donghyuck was overly jumpy and a back talker and he didn't seem to know his age. He always wanted to talk, and it pissed people off. 

He got on well with Jaehyun. Better than Dongyoung, anyway, though the knowledge was mutual. 

In any case, the air was light and the ceiling fixtures tinged warm. Dongyoung almost felt like he was seeing the world through Donghyuck's eyes, though he couldn't figure out why. 

He wrapped his headphone cord around his phone and stuffed it into his pocket. It would be a long day, he thought. Byulyi gave him a small smile, like she was too embarrassed to wave as he passed, or say hi in the empty store. The register was one of those modern ones with the lego coloured buttons, and the corners had been sanded off with plastic, until it was just an oval lump of whiteness that seemed to glow. She was ghosting her fingers over the buttons, between them, they used to snap when pressed but now they sunk into the machine with silence and ease. It was a little overused, maybe. 

Dongyoung found Mr. Lee at his usual haunt; behind his computer. His face was stuck to his screen when he'd opened the door. There was a girl singing through the tinny speakers, and Dongyoung guessed that he was looking to spot more shoe trends- he knew that SNSD had just had a comeback because Yuta(helpfully) let him know, saying that Sooyoung's body had looked, in less appalling words, attractive in the video- and even better in the dance practice! 

Yuta was slightly selfish in his selfless views, saying that board shorts were a better look than uncomfortable dresses because they showed more. If hospital gowns were shorter and well tailored, he'd probably be really into them too. Dongyoung didn't even remember why they were friends. It was hard to pick out whatever he'd found worth it at the beginning of their friendship now- every good part was outdated. No, that was unfair. They did have fun, when Yuta wasn't totally perving on idols. 

Mr. Lee looked up from his screen, halfway between embarrassed and sensationalised. He stopped midway and told Dongyoung what he was doing, and how he'd figured out who the most popular member was to examine her shoes, but he had scratched his neck while doing so until the skin flaked onto the desk chair's fabric. 

"That's interesting," Dongyoung told him, thinking about buying a nametag, just for him. He wasn't about to kiss Mr. Lee's ass if Jaehyun would reap all the benefits from it using Dongyoung's name. "You're a good teacher. Smart."

Mr. Lee looked at him like he wasn't sure if Dongyoung was joking, but when he couldn't sense any bad humour, he started up again. "My mother didn't want me to be a teacher, even when I was younger. She said they got no respect as workers."

Dongyoung hummed. This was the least he'd wanted to partake in a conversation in his whole life, maybe. What with Mr. Lee's mother thinking that a shoe salesman was a really high up position. He wondered if she was as disappointed with Mr. Lee as Mr. Lee, himself, seemed to be. "She's wrong, you'd be really good. The kind of teacher students wish they had," Dongyoung said, a bit too monotone to be taken seriously. Mr. Lee went dead eyed before shaking his head, his hand fidgeted on the mouse. It dragged across the screen too slowly when he moved it, it was the kind of mouse with a plastic ball on the bottom of it that rolled across the mousepad excruciatingly. Dongyoung looked at him like he was crazy, but he had stopped paying attention, and didn't pick up on it. 

"Right, now that I'm clocked in..." Dongyoung tried, almost pleadingly. Mr. Lee enlarged the screen to watch a Red Velvet video. Dongyoung was growing suspicious.

"Heeled sandals..." he murmured, inching closer to the screen.

Dongyoung left, unsure if he'd even clocked in or what. He'd rather lose a day's pay than stand there for another second. He kept telling himself this as he stepped back to the storefront. Byulyi was on her phone. They hadn't opened shop yet, but it was on a cooling period from last week's sales. They were dusting out the cabinets now, from where all the people germs had floated in, and all the times they were opened. The cover was sticky with cleaning products- it clung to the shoes too, and the dampness of air freshener glistened when the sun wasn't behind a cloud. 

Dongyoung looked at his reflection in them. However wobbly it was, he knew his face was tired, and that he looked scrawny. He had a longer neck than most, and even though he was average height, it still made him look a little bit awkward; a bit gangly. He turned away, and was greeted by the sight of Donghyuck- he was lying on an ottoman, wearing battered converse, pyjama socks, boyfriend jeans(that were too short for him) and a white jumper. He looked like a stereotypical main character. His face was even pretty, to boot. His eyes were on the ceiling, squinting so as not to blind himself, eyelashes curling like a halfpipe, mouth hung open. 

Dongyoung thought he might have fallen asleep with his eyes open or something. Until they flickered over.

"Oh," Donghyuck mumbled, "Dongyoung," he sat up then, his torso folding over itself when he brought his knees up to his chin "What's up?"

Dongyoung eyed him, his grin like an anime character; it didn't curve at the top. One sharp, straight line. "Shouldn't you be wearing a uniform."

"It's different today," Donghyuck explained no further, then, "Hey, what do you haveta do? More sorting, right?"

"...Right."

So Donghyuck tagged along. 

Dongyoung usually wore earphones when he was doing grunt labour, but he figured that all his songs were overplayed anyway, so it was kind of useful having Donghyuck around. Not to mention he did most of the work. No telling why, but he did, bringing light hearted conversation that had a surprising amount of silent gaps. Dongyoung had always known he was hard to talk to, but he'd wholeheartedly believed that Donghyuck could talk to a scarecrow about drywall for at least a couple of hours, if he had the time to kill. He must've seemed so boring that you wouldn't even bother. Donghyuck could say "hey, so you're a scarecrow, what's that like?", but he couldn't say anything to Dongyoung. Whatever. It was what it was.

Dongyoung shouldn't really have expected someone to be able to grant him the power of inoffensive speech so suddenly. These things took time. . 

They were sitting on their phones when Mr. Lee came in, nose upwards like a bloodhound. He turned his head this way and that, but his eyes finally stopped at Dongyoung and Donghyuck- they tended to do that. 

"Donghyuck," he said, to which Donghyuck jumped out of his skin, basically. His eyes widened, focusing on Mr. Lee. "What are you doing here? It's your day off."

Donghyuck gave him a sheepish grin, "helping Dongyoung," he said.

"Is Dongyoung paying you?"

Donghyuck shook his head.

"Then why are you working? You barely work for me," Mr. Lee didn't seem mad, not really; just lost. Dongyoung could relate. He didn't know when people started referring to him in the third person, seeing as he was _right_ _there_ , but it got on his nerves. He kept his rage silent, just like he usually did. He only spoke when spoken to after all. 

"It's urgent," Donghyuck responded immediately. Mr. Lee's eyes narrowed. He was acting like Donghyuck's disappointed dad, and that pissed Dongyoung off even more.

Mr. Lee was the Byulyi of bosses- he thought he meant something to the world. It didn't even have to be positive. If he was all happy, his impact would be the beautiful shoe store he left behind, his memories crammed into the brains of all the lost people he  _ gave jobs to _ , all those souls he saved, the money he paid his employees didn't go toward shelter like he thought. It went to material things like bomber jackets, and make up, and in Dongyoung's case, shoes. He couldn't speak for the rest of Mr. Lee's oyster world, but he didn't feel particularly in debt to him at all. 

When Mr. Lee was pissed off with the way things happened, he liked to think he was leading the workers astray, and that they were following him to the firepit like drones. That they were decent people blinded by their admiration for him. Or, he'd think that he was leaving his parents disappointed, so sorely disappointed that they wouldn't know what to do with themselves.

In these scenarios, he was always remembered. That was the sort of person he wanted to be- the hero of his own tale, maybe, but it also had to be the world's. His conflict was inner. The cosmetics of a problem. 

He was talking down to Donghyuck constantly; Dongyoung had seen it before. But this time, well, this time he just seemed confused when he gave up the conversation, and walked out the door. 

Dongyoung looked to Donghyuck. His face was red with what was probably frustration, or shame- not that he seemed to have any. That'd be a show, for sure. 

"Are you okay," all of Dongyoung's questions seemed to come out like statements. Sometimes it made sense, but now it just felt dumb. He felt dumb. 

"I guess," Donghyuck replied, he was holding his face in his hands, probably because it had looked overheated before, and his hands had been on the cold floor. He moved and slumped over with a sigh so half his face was pressed against the ground. It was linoleum, laminated sandpaper with little specks of silver glitter, like the floors at chain department stores. It was also dirty- Dongyoung wouldn't put his mouth anywhere near that thing. He was just an onlooker in this tragedy.  It was like watching someone put a fork in a plug outlet, and you just watched them. Well, not exactly like that, but still. 

Donghyuck seemed over it within the next few minutes, and then they were back to work, finishing everything with time to spare.

Mr. Lee let them go early. Or, he let Dongyoung go early, seeing as Donghyuck wasn't even meant to be there in the first place. He'd only let them go once he made sure Donghyuck knew that he wasn't getting overtime. Dongyoung never thought that it was possible to have an uncle like that- he thought your uncles and aunts were, by nature, more laid back(and probably nicer) than your parents. But that wasn't all that hard for him anyway, so maybe it was just him. 

It was raining out. Bucketing down, not in raindrops, but in rain pillars that beamed with rushing water, like there were hoses hanging from the clouds. Neither of them had a coat, no one did- it was summer, and warm that very morning. The sky had since turned the colour of limestone, and seemed adamant not to change at all. Lashing.

They were about to part ways, Dongyoung with his phone deep in his pocket, so it wouldn't fizzle out if water splashed on its grates. He was just wearing the uniform, and shoes, and underwear. He was going to go back home like a river rat, and there was nothing he could do about it. Especially if the bus was going to take ages. 

He remembered something as they awkwardly shuffled from foot to foot. It was the tinted lights, he thought, that were warmer than usual. Colours seemed more vibrant even though they had no reason to. Well. "Happy birthday," he said, thinking back to last week, with the sticker gun and the stifled conversation- when Donghyuck had said his birthday was this week. You could tell. 

Dongyoung hadn't done much of anything for the rest of it. He was a self professed corpse, about to collapse from exhaustion. You could tell from the way he dragged his feet as he walked, or the lines under his eyes, purple running deep. 

"Thanks," Donghyuck responded, throwing in a smile. It was hard to guess the sincerity. It had taken Dongyoung a while to realise that Donghyuck was  _ also _ bad at pleasantries. Well, not as bad as him, but it counted for something. They had one thing in common and it wasn't even an interest, or a hobby, or a positive trait.

Dongyoung made to open the door, but Donghyuck rested a hand on his forearm. He turned and regretted it- Donghyuck had puppy eyes, he wanted something, and Dongyoung didn't know if he could refuse or not. He wasn't a pushover, but he wasn't loud about his refusals, either. If you weren't loud, you wouldn't register as anything to Donghyuck. You'd just be a gap in his mind, and who payed attention to gaps? 

"Hey, Dongyoung," he said, then his face broke out into a wide grin that spanned the whole of Korea, the whole of the world. "Bring me to the arcade," he said. It wasn't a question, but a demand. One that surprised Dongyoung. He couldn't say he'd been expecting it, because that would be a big fat lie. It was such a weird thing to ask a stranger. He could never, in a million years, do it. The only thing he asked from strangers was a quick turn of the head and utter disinterest, and sometimes to get the fuck out of his way in crowded shopping centers, and sometimes to fuck off when they were wasting his time by trying on the whole of Footlocker, and sometimes, sometimes, to put down the beer, dad. But that last one didn't matter so much. He was growing. Learning to forget what didn't affect him, learning what not to allow. 

He didn't know how to reply. It was a simple matter of 'do you or don't you?' but it took his whole brain, which couldn't be that big considering his grades, to think it through. In another life, he would have shut such a request down immediately. If Yuta asked it too. 

But he wasn't living that life, unfortunately. And the question caught him so offguard that he didn't even know where to begin, or why it was asked- they had never seemed to particularly get along, or be buddy buddy, or anything like that. It's his birthday, Dongyoung thought, and he doesn't seem too happy about it. He didn't mind really. "Sure," he said, monotone and unethusiastic, but it still had Donghyuck going all smiley. If Dongyoung copied him his buckteeth would show. If Dongyoung did the things Donghyuck did, Jaehyun would probably whisper about him to his friends while pretending he was the token "nice one". He was white lighters, all the way. There was no mistaking it. 

 

There was one arcade in the downtown area, and everyone knew it. It had a huge driveway for when it hosted children's' parties, and the pavement sloped downwards into it as if it was a black hole, it was such a sloppy construction job. The disabled parking spots were always the last unoccupied spaces. But there would still be the stupidest situations whenever Dongyoung walked by. For example, there was currently a motorbike parked in one of them. He didn't even want to know, but it was there. And the building itself looked like it sold secondhand books in wooden shelves that were also for sale, or loveseats with suspicious stains, sometimes blood, sometimes drinks, sometimes that other thing, but they'd all be a fading pink- slow fading, yet fading nonetheless. 

But no. It was an arcade; a twenty minute walk from Footlocker in the rain. They both looked like river rats when they resurfaced from the puddles and slippery concrete, to the black and white tiles on the arcade's floor. It wasn't the kind of place where you paid for entrance, because then no one would show up, probably. The machines were mostly gambling ones, with the rotating wheels of fruit and the huge levers that you pushed to stop them from spinning. There was a handful of racing games, with to scale models of motorbikes, and not-to-scale models of formula 1 cars. Dance Dance Revolution. Duck Hunt. Even a batting cage, with rickety sides that could fall outwards at a moments notice and a well functioning tennis ball machine, that always looked too fast, but was never fast enough when you were standing at the red line.

It was the high life, every middle schooler's hang out spot.

Dongyoung loved the shooting games the most, but he wasn't picky. He had a good eye, and even better motor skills. The controls in these joints were always wonky, but he could make it work anyway. In one of the machines, where you shot at targets, Dongyoung had gotten 3rd place on the leaderboard under 'DYG', 3 letters only- it was an import. 

He was freezing, the rain soaked him through the bones, to his marrows. But he just stood there in his soggy shoes and waited for Donghyuck to pick something. 

"To be honest, I'm really surprised we're even here," Donghyuck said, for a moment he went all distant, like he was daydreaming. The machines lit his face up in about 20 colours, all techno and eye oozingly bright, from every angle. There was the highly, highly saturated blue from Duck hunt that ran down the side of his nose bridge and pooled in his eyebags. It was the kind of picture you saw on tumblr, and wondered who the person could be, what kind of life did they have? Dongyoung sometimes wondered this about Donghyuck too, to be honest. He could be really confusing. "I hadn't thought this far," he admitted sheepishly. His eyes were flickering between all the games, like one would pick him.

"I could pick for you," Dongyoung said. He didn't know what to play either.

In the end, it didn't matter. They had to trudge up to the counter and ask for change for their  notes in 100 wons, in coins, please. There was a lot.  _ A lot _ . The boy at the desk(he couldn't have been much older than Dongyoung) had to put all the pennies into ziplock bags so they wouldn't crumble from their palms, which were too small to carry it all. 

When they walked away from the counter, they were back at square one. Indecision had to be Dongyoung's favourite type of decision, and he was still getting a bit sick of it. 

"Let's play Dance Dance Revolution!" Donghyuck said, all starry eyed. Dongyoung agreed, but only because they weren't going to get anywhere if he became a choosing beggar. He was going to spend all of his change either way, even though it was last week's salary. Or most of it. 

The machine had tacky drawings of dancing people on the exterior, mostly girls. They were all wearing red lipstick, matched with unnatural hair colors and old looking faces. Tube tops and flared trousers, swinging disco balls. Dongyoung stepped up onto the raised metal platform, mentally preparing himself for embarrassment. He much preferred noraebangs, if only because he could keep his shame after he'd hung up the microphone for the day. Dancing... god. He'd never be able for it, when he did exercise his muscles felt like they were hanging off his bones by mere threads. But as long as he just stepped on the right arrowed panels, he should be okay, right? 

Wrong. Donghyuck had picked some english artist and wringed his hands out. He was taking it seriously, Dongyoung realised. But he didn't realise how seriously until the song actually started up, and he was left there moving his feet so hard he was breaking records for 'World's Shittiest Tap Dancer'. 

Donghyuck moved gracefully enough, but it wasn't just his legs. It was his whole body, he copied the lady on screen's moves and even added his own. He was killing it. Dongyoung had never understood the phrase 'feeling left in the dust' quite so well before- it resonated with him. 

Donghyuck was the kind of dancer that had you wanting to take up the tango even though, if anything, you were naturally deterred from dancing well, because they looked so cool in the moment that you wanted to awe people the exact same way. Wanted to watch yourself with two audienced eyes, two astounded eyes. 

Dongyoung almost tripped on his lace, which had been swinging about relentlessly, more than his feet. He caught himself before he fell and knocked Donghyuck over, onto the sticky ground. Donghyuck wouldn't notice until he had dented the ground- he was really into the game now, moving about so much that it looked like he might whack his hips off the metal rails if he kept it up. People were watching, but they didn't seem ashamed for his sake. It made Dongyoung happy in the smallest of ways. 

The score screen was bright blue, inverted blood, a visual disaster to the highest order. There was a CGI woman standing by the jumble of numbers, addition and totals. She was wearing neon clothes, with yellow neon highlights in her hair. Her smile had no soul- it was too small to map out properly with pixels, and she just stood, moving oddly every so often. Dongyoung averted his eyes.

"Perfect score!" Donghyuck said, really looking at the thing. He seemed to care about stuff like this, a lot. But it was his birthday, he was allowed to without Dongyoung getting irrationally annoyed(in his head, but still, he imagined Donghyuck could feel the scorn through his skull). 

Dongyoung didn't do badly, just not... well. His score kept blinking with white lights, demanding his attention. The machine had a dusty screen but the colours were so out of place in real life. "That's really good," he said. Donghyuck looked at him like he was expecting more. "Seriously," he added. Donghyuck turned away and stepped off the machine, back on the tiles. The cuffs of his jeans were pushed up now from motion, and the bone of his ankles stretched his skin nicely. There were red marks from where the hems of the converse rubbed against his legs; blisters would appear, maybe tomorrow. He looked taller, as if you could cash your growth spurt ticket in the moment you grew older, and had something to signify it with.

Dongyoung was embarrassed in his work uniform, with his wet hair plastered to his forehead- so ugly. He didn't think about his appearance a lot. He liked to stay positive, so there was no need to. But now he felt idiotic, hanging out with Donghyuck, and not for the same reason he'd have assumed two weeks ago. The awkwardness of photos with fans. 

"It's your turn to choose," Donghyuck told him, like he wanted to know. As if favourite arcade machines were a good judge of character. Dongyoung liked Duck Hunt, so it couldn't be too accurate. 

"It's your birthday," he tried, knowing his attempt was limp. He didn't like to take direct responsibility in many things, unless it was work related, if so, he'd relish it. He'd make sure Mr. Lee  _ knew _ he wasn't Jaehyun, and not just because of that name tag he'd pick up before work tomorrow. 

"It's your turn to choose," Donghyuck repeated, as if Dongyoung hadn't said anything at all. He wondered why he was even here. Maybe it was just to be a deciding factor. 

They played Duck Hunt. 

People started clearing out the later it got, where the sky wasn't dark just because it was raining. There was a gaggle of freshmen all pressed up near the corner, where a punching machine occupied the space. They would whoop whenever one of the guys threw a sturdy punch, and the machine would make little dinging noises that actually sounded like the girls themselves. When Dongyoung was a freshman, they didn't do things like that. They would hang around at the mall in little cliques, and the guys would lead the lot to sports shops to look at branded two piece tracksuits, and the girls would have too much shame to speak up about what they actually wanted to do. Sooyoung had said that boys were boring because they couldn't comprehend what sort of things were uninteresting, like MMA on tv and their local football team and calling themselves dumb ironically. "Don't worry," she'd said, "you're not one of the boring ones." She must not have realised, or something. He wasn't unattainable enough to have a one sided crush on, let alone one that had been going strong for the last two years. 

Dongyoung was doing well for himself; he had a lot of prize tickets. They spat out from the machines like vomit, whenever you hit a small ring in ski ball or the nemesis's car in driving simulators, or the machine hard enough that it'd be fatal, malfunction, infinite tickets. 

He didn't need to break a machine for them. He was good at skee ball, which they lingered on for a long time, because Donghyuck was one of those people that would rise from the dead to spite someone, and he was losing. Badly. 

The tickets were square for the most part, clipped at the corners to make a fat looking hexagon. The ink sometimes ran out but it wasn't an issue with this currency- the paper was thin thick and the colour of blue raspberry. Dongyoung had gotten the center ring in skeeball, the high scoring one with the pinhole curve. They were spitting out of the slot in a flurry.

"It's like confetti," he said, thinking about how they'd have to hold it. "You know, for your birthday."

"I didn't take you as the poetic type, but your simile just there was astounding," Donghyuck replied with a smile, that had all the intent of being lopsided, but it as unachievable on Donghyuck's rounded face. His voice read sarcastic, but everything else carried filtered delight. At Dongyoung, not the tickets. He got like this whenever Dongyoung opened his mouth unprompted. A special holiday for sure. 

They didn't go to the prize counter yet. It wasn't worth it until the end, until the grand payoff. A golden score, or whatever. Dongyoung was mostly just along for the journey. 

They went to the batting cage when there was hardly an unemployee left, when it was just them and the bored people glancing over from the counters. The light overhead had begun to blink, and business was quiet enough that a worker had carried a stepladder out and was currently inspecting it with attentive fear. It was one of those lights with the huge, elongated, plastic slot over the top. So that the brightness came through misty and cold. 

The place still seemed dark, which made no sense, but it was. The glowing, the offcolours, the lack of coordination, everything was dark when you weren't standing in front of one of the machines. And the fixtures seemed to dim when people began leaving. It really felt late when Dongyoung watched as Donghyuck stepped into the batting cage with a baseball bat, no helmets or masks, unlike the regular ones. There was a tennis ball dispenser thingy, and tall, rickety railings. Donghyuck held the bat with both hands, behind his right shoulder, like a yakuza holding one filled with nails. Dongyoung was silently glad that he was somewhat distanced from him; Donghyuck's expression was wild, pupils wavering. 

The dispenser made a whirring noise. Through the vacuum noises, the metallic scraping, Donghyuck muttered "This one's for you, Jaemin", and Dongyoung heard it somehow. Before he could wonder who Jaemin was, the tennis balls started flying. 

Donghyuck hit the first one too hard, so he almost spun all the way around post collision, and the rubber split in half under the fabric. He gathered his wits and swung again, hitting every single one, even as the tempo picked up. The only noise was thuds, followed by ricketting. Maybe Dongyoung gasped once or twice. 

Rage was always strange to witness, but it fit no one less than Donghyuck. Dongyoung felt like he was intruding- seeing something that was never meant to be seen, like the trick wires at magic shows, or his mother crying. 

The dispenser came to a slow crawled stop. Donghyuck hit the last tennis ball, it clinked off the metal of the machine before rolling across the floor to the railings. He panted, dropping his arms to his sides. His face wasn't red, not really- until his eyes met Dongyoung's. He flushed under the scrutiny, chest rising and falling quickly under his jumper, so it looked to be his shoulders mostly.

He propped the bat up in a corner before walking out. By the mesh door, there stood the machine that accepted change. It trickled with tickets- not many, as it couldn't measure how well the batter actually did. They pooled in Donghyuck's hands. His knuckles were red from the grip he'd had. 

They were completely silent, even as they got soda from the vending machine and sat themselves up on the diner stools that faced the bowling area. Dongyoung's coke was flat from falling into the flap at the bottom of the thing. He took a sip, another, feeling the coldness slither its way into the pit of his stomach. The sting. He drank too much soda, it shouldn't make him feel sick like this. He looked to Donghyuck, who was still red, watching the empty lanes with their propped up pins. Maybe there was a different reason why Dongyoung felt sick. 

They were alone, besides the staff- though they acted more like NPCs or robots. 

"Are you okay?" Dongyoung asked, and it sounded like a question. He couldn't pinpoint the moment when he actually started to care about the answer, but it was all smudged together, like his memories of last summer, his memories before last week even. He couldn't just leave all the talking to Donghyuck. Not always. The DY-DH-who-started-talking? ratio was ridiculous enough as it was.

"Yeah," Donghyuck said. There was a bag of skittles on his lap that he'd just bought. They were the neon green ones, with claims of sourness. He ripped it open at the top, where the wrapper was cut into little spikes shaped like picket fences. "I don't eat the yellow ones," he told Dongyoung, taking his hand and holding it up, dropping yellow skittles onto his palm. His hand was incredibly warm on Dongyoung's. Not just warm, but  _ hot _ from his pumping blood. Dongyoung brought his hand to his mouth and dumped all the skittles down his throat in one go. "I was meant to hang out with a friend today, for my birthday," Donghyuck said, looking away. He was exceptionally bad att eye contact. "But he ditched me, even though I was really looking forward to it- even though it's my fucking birthday, he ditched me. I don't want to say why, so don't ask."

"That sucks," Dongyoung said, blinking. He didn't exactly expect to be told much of anything. It was always a surprise when it happened. 

But he'd wondered why Donghyuck wasn't spending the day with his friends. Well, now he knew.

Donghyuck laughed, sorta genuinely, but sorta spitefully, too. "It sucks so bad."

"You're meant to tell me that you feel better after all of this," Dongyoung blurted. When Donghyuck laughed this time, it was one hundred percent genuine, he laughed confidently with his jaw unhinged, not prettily.But there was something about it that made you jealous. Dongyoung certainly never laughed that hard. He hadn't felt something so strongly before this moment, and that was only because he thought he'd never get the taste of artificial lemon flavouring out of his mouth. E512, like a motorway. 

"The day's not over yet, you never know. I could walk out  of this place even more miserable than I was in the first place," Donghyuck wiggled his eyebrows, pushing himself off the stool and to his feet. He picked up their heap of tickets from the table, held them in his two hands, so some of the strands of them almost hit the floor. Sometimes they'd fall from each other too, like flaking dandruff sprinkling off a scalp. 

The lady at the prize counter told them to hurry up and pick one, please, we're closing up soon. She had a huge scab on her right temple, and it was yellowing at the edges. Her glasses were those nerd ones that were really popular a while back. They forever reigned as the default perscription choice, for default(perscription?) people. On any other day Dongyoung wouldn't have minded being rushed. Hell, he'd probably have sympathised. He wanted to accuse the world of being unfair whenever a woman brought her small child into Footlocker without any knowledge of either of their shoe sizes, wanting two pairs of shoes. But tonight, he didn't really feel home pulling him in, and not even out of necessity. 

He looked between the shelves, of which there were plenty. They slotted into the wall with minimal support, and looked like they might break under all the novelty, molded plastic. The girl gave Dongyoung, who he supposed must have seemed the older one, a pleading look. He ignored her. 

It wasn't on purpose, really. Picking something to spend their tickets on proved tough, especially when the range was so good, so excessive. They had bobbleheads, funny shaped erasers, rolls of decal tape with little faces on them, sticker sheets, keyrings, neon lanyards, caps with 'POW!' signs embroidered on the front; it was the prize counter of earthly delights. Donghyuck was drooling- on the wood, by the girl's hands, he was short enough that his chin rested on it.  His eyes were wide, but he still looked sleepy. Enough so that Dongyoung felt guilty for leaving so late- or he should have, but it was hard to feel guilt at all under such circumstances. 

The tangle of tickets writhed on the countertop. Like a creepy spider, it had a noticeable presence and effect on everyone who knew of it. 

"I'll give you whatever you want," the girl said, eyeing the monster. She didn't want to count them. Dongyoung looked at Donghyuck, who raised both eyebrows, but said nothing. It was an invitation if he'd ever seen one. 

He turned back to the girl, she looked terrified and fed up. "We'll take the bat, please."

"And the cap," Donghyuck added. 

Dongyoung nodded. "And the cap."

 

It was actually only nine when they left the arcade, but it seemed to hold all their non-momentous thought hostage until they slipped out of the double doors and onto the lopsided street. Sleepy Donghyuck didn't want to go home yet because he "wasn't tired", which was more a show of fear than the truth. 

Dongyoung had no ideas whatsoever, which was hardly surprising or desirable. But, seeing as it was Donghyuck's birthday and all, he went along with whatever. 

He'd already given him the cap. He knew he'd never wear it, anyway. It would make his fringe look stupid, as well as his stupid face. Donghyuck had taken it and struggled to get it on without messing up his hair. It had stopped raining and the only water left was pooling, with the petals, in the gutters and along the edges of curbs. The path was slick with it. 

Donghyuck peaked his cap high. It was dark blue with the yellow and red embroidery on the front, and all of his hair was sticking out of the adjusting loop at the back, but Dongyoung didn't tell him. He looked better without it on, but whatever. It was better when he turned it backwards; cuter. Dongyoung couldn't remember a time when he didn't find Donghyuck cute, but that was just his bad memory. It could have very well been later than when he'd left the house this morning, and very well been earlier than when they stood surrounded by neon lights. Certain moments tended to do things. That's why any moments, any things, any performances of actions were scary. 

They had to carry the bat with them on the way to McDonalds. As Donghyuck began swinging the thing about in circles(an action that would be laughable in every other lighting, but in the dark, proved threatening), Dongyoung thought, yep, yakuza indeed. 

The double golden arches appeared overhead, without them really looking for it. When they slipped into McDonalds, it was nearing ten by the second. No, really. That was how the passage of time had always worked, yet sometimes it was hard to remember that. 

And it was warm- exceedingly so. Dongyoung wished he had a coat to peel away from his arms, but he'd been wearing his work uniform all night. The one he'd have to wear tomorrow, too. Sigh. 

The place was empty, save for a few tourists who had made a mad dash for a diner after landing their plane. They sat around a map of Seoul, and if you squinted you could make out all the red lines intersecting with blue, the careful planning. Their suitcases were kept neatly next to them, with hard plastic covers that were either block colour or floral. 

There was no telling why the city seemed so dead tonight. It was as if the universe had sent everyone away with a wave of its hand because it was Donghyuck's special day and no one else mattered. 

He ordered chips and a mcflurry, shuffling from foot to foot with receipt in hand. Dongyoung couldn't decide, so he just asked for the same. He hadn't had a mcflurry before anyway. 

And certainly not with chips being dipped into it, but Donghyuck was there scooping his soft serve up with them, polluting it with chip pan grease. 

"How can you even stomach that?" Dongyoung asked, genuinely curious. They were sitting near the back of the place- it was one of those off-the-motorway affairs, with late nights for the staff and the strangest people sipping on milkshakes. Where they sat, it was by the window in a booth so they could sit back in the sofas. Donghyuck had his feet extended under the table, resting next to Dongyoung. He was almost in another realm of comfort, his head tipped back and forward at the same time, yard after yard of fries being consumed in seconds. If Dongyoung got him a cake, he'd surely inhale it all without chewing. Teleport to his stomach, readily digested. 

"You don't have taste if you don't like chips and ice cream," Donghyuck told him with conviction. Dongyoung thought he might not have taste then. Or, it wasn't opposite day. 

Donghyuck nudged his mcflurry cup over, which was nearing empty, "try it. You have to."

Dongyoung tried it. The salt melted the ice cream faster than his mouth could, and it was a bit oddly textured at first, but it seemed to make sense in a Donghyuck way, like counting in sevens and wearing socks to bed. He watched Dongyoung, searching for a reaction, like he always did. 

"It's good," Dongyoung conceded, dunking two or three more in. The vanilla coating was unfairly addictive. 

Donghyuck seemed pleased with the answer, cheeks pushing up in a smile. "What's your favourite type of ice cream?" 

"Mint, why?"

Donghyuck shrugged and slumped back even further. He seemed like he might fall through the couch seams if he sunk in even more, and never be seen again. He'd have to eat fibered stuffing and spare change to survive. Dongyoung wouldn't miss him, maybe. "We barely know anything about each other." 

Fair. "So you start by asking me my favourite type of ice cream?" Dongyoung asked; he'd finished up his fries now and he felt more open to talking than usual. There came a sense of unsatisfied satisfaction when you could see the grease collecting at the bottom of the chip bag, slimy looking blotches on white paper. He licked the salt and ice cream off his fingers one by one. 

"It's a good judge of character. The fact that your favourite is mint means you have bad taste," Donghyuck probably believed in horoscopes, so his opinion carried no weight as far as Dongyoung was concerned. Except for the chips ice cream thing, that was a moment of pure genius. 

"Judgy," Dongyoung said, picking up his tray to dump. 

"So are you," Donghyuck hopped up out of his seat and came up next to him. 

Fair enough, Dongyoung thought as he watched the wrappers slide into the bin. 

 

Donghyuck figured that they should head home, even though he apparently didn't want to. But he was yawning himself to tears and wiping them away with his sleeves. It was sometime after eleven. Dongyoung knew his absence wasn't noticed at home, but really, he hardly knew Donghyuck and there wasn't much left to do. 

They parted ways at the bus stop, it was orange under the streetlights, empty and depressing. An unfitting end. 

To be honest, Dongyoung had considered walking Donghyuck back, but he wasn't even that much older, they were the same age now, and he thought it'd be weird to suggest. 

"I'll wait for the bus with you," Donghyuck said, shivering. "My house is near here anyway."

So was Footlocker- just a few  stops down the road. Dongyoung seethed when he remembered that he had to show up tomorrow. He should just sleep in his uniform- though that'd worsen the problem. His head was pressed against the bus stop pole, where he was leaning, it was ice cold and hard and generally uncomfortable. He would have been listening to earphones by now, but Donghyuck was still going on. He always seemed to want something from Dongyoung, whether it be a reaction or an answer. Now, he just wanted him to listen.

"Honestly, I'm still pissed off at Jaemin, even though we would've just dicked around at his house all day. It's the principle of it- like, he won't stop sucking Yerim's face for one fucking day so he can hang out with me? On my birthday? He's unreliable, that's what he is; he always has been."

Dongyoung hummed in agreement, even though he'd never met this Jaemin guy in his life. But from the sound of things, from Donghyuck's expression, he couldn't be too good of a friend. 

Donghyuck looked out onto the street, stepping slightly out on the road to see around the bend in the road. He was watching for the bus. 

A slight breeze fell over them. Dongyoung ran a hand through his hair, and it continued to ruffle without being touched. 

"Thanks for listening to me," Donghyuck said, mirroring his actions.

"I didn't do anything," lights shone on the concrete, pooling in the little dips in the black concrete. Donghyuck was looking away, and his flyaways and out of place(well) strands of hair lit up pure white. His neck pillared up through his collar, and it was so narrow, so close. 

"Not many people bother listening to me," he said, probably because the bus was loud as it drove, and he thought Dongyoung might'nt even hear him. There was a certain detachment from his words, like he didn't even care at all. Dongyoung couldn't help but feel incredibly sad for him in that moment. Oh, how small he looked. There was no other way to describe it; confessions tended to trigger three emotions- anger, shock, or sadness. Pity came afterwards.

The bus stopped in front of them, and a few people were dotted about along the rows of seats. Through the window, it looked like limbo, or another world. 

The bus driver had an old face, if you ran a hand over it, it'd probably feel like worn leather. He watched Dongyoung. There was no time left.

"Happy birthday Donghyuck," he said, taking one step on. He didn't get to turn around, but through the closing doors, he could hear a small "it sure is!". 

Dongyoung asked for a single ticket and took an isolated seat near the back. Watching the dimmed houses go by, he felt more alone than he'd ever been. It was so overwhelming that it nearly knocked the wind out of him, and then the moment passed, and he was just Dongyoung on his way home. 

 

~~~~

 

He slept in the next day, showed up late. He had foreseen this as he peeled his uniform off yesterday, but it still got on his nerves, even so. 

Mr. Lee hadn't seemed to notice. Maybe Jaehyun showed up late all the time, and he had miraculously mixed them up again. Dongyoung hoped so; he was meant to show up a little over half an hour ago. The lull after the sales had ended, and now the shop was picking up storm again from customer after customer after customer. 

It was odd to see Donghyuck. He was there, helping people pick out shoes in his work clothes, no longer working illegally. Despite the pale blue under his eyes, greys below skin level- he looked good. Like returning to a nice dream after having been woken up. 

They caught each other's' eyes for a split second as Dongyoung was whisked away to the store room by Mr. Lee, and Donghyuck wiggled his eyebrows because  _ of course _ he did. 

They had received several dozen boxes of heeled sandals. Most of them were black and twisty, some red and twisty, and then a spare few tacky gold and twisty. The gold ones were in the black boxes, and Dongyoung just thought about how hard it would be to sort them. 

"Just put them with the yellows," Mr. Lee had told him later, upon request. Dongyoung did just that. 

 

And then, quite suddenly, it was the weekend. 

The passage of time never ceased to surprise Dongyoung, even though it was an old trick by this point- a few hours with Donghyuck felt almost too long, because he could recall all that had happened, but on friday night he had just stayed in bed after work, and it felt like seconds. He didn't think he'd ever experience that kind of thing, but really. As cliche as it was. 

Johnny had arrived again, on rotation. Since Dongyoung last saw him a week ago, he had cut and dyed his hair. 

"When did you do that?" he asked, and Johnny looked at him like, do what? until he realised.

He ran a hand through his hair, and it should've been damaged from the dye but it was silky smooth, though Dongyoung doubted he got it done professionally. It flopped back over his forehead, his sidecut was all stubbly and new. "When I was staying at Soojung's," he said. Well. That made complete sense.

Soojung had always been the type to chop all her hair off at a moments notice, cut herself a new fringe, colour it until the old ones bled through, and she wasn't half bad at it. 

Dongyoung rarely saw her- she was one of the older cousins, and didn't go to any family meetups because she was always busy or lazy. But when he saw her, she'd be sitting quietly with the adults and not with the other cousins, with a glass of whatever wine they had and a small plate for small food. She didn't eat much either.

Johnny was just interesting enough that she'd bothered with him, Dongyoung figured. That was the kind of person she was. (Dongyoung on the other hand)

Johnny threw on his boots, grabbed a backpack which was needlessly dark, and ushered Dongyoung out the door. 

It was late enough at that point, and Dongyoung's bones felt stiff from lying in front of the tv all day. They kept it on to give them the option of not talking, without it being weird. 

The streets were mostly occupied by college kids on their way to other dorms, home, wherever- most carrying bottles of alcohol that shone under the streetlights. Johnny offered Dongyoung a cigarette, who refused because he had never smoked before, and because all the propaganda at school had gotten to him somewhat. Johnny lit one up for himself, taking drags while they walked to wherever he had in mind. 

It ended up being a twenty minute journey. They were at a park, one that Dongyoung used to play football in when he was younger. He was never any good at it, but all the boys from the flat would go so he trailed along after, wearing any old shoes and not studded football boots. 

There was a grey wall near the back of it, and the whole lawn dripped down from it in a slope. It was coloured through and through with spray paint and ashy splotches from smoke. Johnny dropped his bag by his feet and looked it up and down. 

He said that his friends did this kind of thing back in Chicago. Not many people did it, he added, don't get him wrong; it wasn't because they were American, it was because they were teenage delinquents. Dongyoung nodded along, wondering what was happening.

Johnny took a can of spray paint out of his bag, turned to look at Dongyoung with raised brows, as if asking for permission to continue. Would Dongyoung rat him out(no)? He shrugged, even though he kinda cared. 

Johnny got to work. He shook the can and went at it, though it didn't take too long, it looked more precise to execute than Dongyoung had imagined. 

He stepped back. In wirey text- roman characters- there was something that Dongyoung couldn't read. Not because it wasn't in Korean, but because the letters were so mangled and ripped raw. Johnny didn't explain. He just examined, until he wasn't examining anymore. 

They went to the chinese takeaway around the corner from the flat. The sign was incredibly tacky, it read something like 'FULL MOON', with kana next to it. Dongyoung had always had full intentions of learning Mandarin. It was hard to start, though, on top of all his schoolwork. He never seemed to have the time for what he wanted to do anyway. 

But it was summer. He could try, he thought as he stepped in front of the counter.

Do something out of personal interest for once. (Johnny got a bag of chips at the Chinese, and nothing else, and Dongyoung wondered if he should be embarrassed by that or not).

 

~~~~

 

The sandals caught on throughout Korea. It seemed as though Mr. Lee was psychic; it was the only explanation for the amount of high school-to-college aged girls asking for 'red, strappy, heeled sandals', which was a mouthful for sure. They'd go misty eyed when Dongyoung appeared with boxes stacked up to the ceiling in his hands, not that he could see them past the cardboard. Suffice to say, he was kept in the front all day, and they shoved Jaehyun in the back room. He was most productive there, but not in the way Mr. Lee thought. He had to update his fangirls with selfies every day or they'd probably mob his house. 

And Dongyoung didn't mind being in the front, really. He was plain enough that girls didn't mob him in the same way- if he carried those stupid fucking heels they'd practically tackle him- but otherwise, he was golden. Even if his legs threatened to collapse every minute he was standing up. 

It dragged on like this for a while. 

And then, there was Donghyuck. There always seemed to be Donghyuck. But wait, wasn't Dongyoung just skimming over the rest of the room? He didn't notice Byulyi, or Myungsoo, or Dahye as he scanned the place down. Just Donghyuck, over by the counter, and he must have been lying down, since his shirt was stuck to the small of his back. It dipped in a line. 

He was talking to a customer, but it was more muted. His mouth closed and opened and didn't curve in the slightest. 

Dongyoung went to the back room, where Mr. Lee was seated at his desk, sipping on a vitamin drink. He had a stripey straw extended to his lips, and they frowned in between sips. His computer whirred from overuse, a shuttering noise. Air blasting out of the filters. 

He looked up and palmed his pink face, his cheeks, then his sweaty forehead. It was so hot in the room; the window didn't open anymore. It felt like sitting on the bonnet of a black car that had been out in the sun all day, with insulators at night- summer could be cruel. 

"Jaehyun," he wrongly acknowledged. His stubble was grey and sparse, jutting out of his chin, under his ears where he might have had sideburns at some point. "Done for the day?"

"It's Dongyoung, and, yeah," Dongyoung pushed his fingertips into his neck, feeling for heat. His body was melting, it seemed. 

"Okay then, Dongyoung," and that was all he said. The noise of him drinking was loud in the room, which sounded like a shitty beach trip- the slurping, the dirty air from the computer like wind, the annoyance. Dongyoung left him there when he could, and went back to the storefront. 

It wasn't busy at all. Dahye had taken over register, and she looked more bored than usual. Her expression was so blank, you could have sworn that she was attempting to sleep with her eyes open. 

Donghyuck stood by the door; he finished at the same time of Dongyoung, though Mr. Lee knew what his hours actually were, so he didn't have to keep reminding him. 

He jumped a little when Dongyoung came into view, putting a hand on Dongyoung's forearm as he tried to go past. 

"It's my birthday," he said. 

"It was your birthday last week," Dongyoung said. The hand stayed on his forearm. He didn't know if it would be more awkward to brush it off, so he left it alone for now. 

Donghyuck bit his lip before speaking again, like he didn't know what he was going to say either, or that he'd thought better of it. "It's my birthday," he said, "and I have nothing to do."

Dongyoung looked at him weirdly, even though he knew it was mean to do so. "You're just pretending it's your birthday so I'll take you somewhere," though the thought did make him happy, in a way. He didn't think there were many opportunities to hang out with people- especially if you were boring and mean, like him. So he was just glad he hadn't scared Donghyuck off, though then again... he should've considered that Donghyuck was the most spiteful person he knew, and had probably made Dongyoung his conquest, like how he would not stop playing Duck Hunt until he won, even though he was sick of it, just to spite the winner. 

Dongyoung decided he was overthinking it, proceeding to overthink other things- like how Donghyuck had very clear skin even though he ate disgusting things(or that's what Dongyoung assumed based on his personality). There were some blemishes, like this flat freckle that was too big to be a freckle, kinda. It was more like a very small mole, just next to his right ear. Like a chocolate stain or spilled tea. And he had these little acne scars under his eyes, the surface of the moon. But it still seemed smooth. It was unfairly endearing.Dongyoung himself had faded freckles, but they just looked like stains now, messy. He didn't dwell on it. Even though they were permanent and his classmates' pimples weren't. 

"What's wrong with that? Let's go to my house," Donghyuck said, upfront as usual. He certainly was jumpy today. 

"Isn't it a bit early for that?"

Donghyuck, who was probably straight, seemed to miss the joke. Which forced Dongyoung to agree out of embarrassment. He didn't tend to think when he spoke, which is why he spoke rarely, so he could avoid situations which included sitting next to Donghyuck on the bus. 

 

He was sitting next to Donghyuck on the bus, with its blue fibered seats, with its ugly abstract patterns. Supposedly, Donghyuck's place was within walking distance but he felt "too lazy". Dongyoung was secretly glad because he was too lazy as well, though sitting next to someone that you knew the name of, by law, meant that you had to strike up a conversation. And he wasn't good at striking up anything besides the bowling pins in Wii Sports. It proved to be an issue once he realised that not only did he have nothing he could say, but also he had nothing that he could want to say but keep quiet about as well. His mind was like one of those models of human brains- about as full as one, too. You could scalpel it open and it'd be full of grey sludge. 

He thought all this. 

And then, Donghyuck started going on, which was one of his better features. It brought a relief like no other- especially when his conversation topics were interesting. Sometimes, they were. Like now, he talked about his estate.

"It's a shit hole," he said, pressing against Dongyoung as the bus rounded a corner. "Like, really. I only invited you over because I wanted to hang out and I have no money."

"Why didn't you ask to come to mine?" Dongyoung said, though he would have said no anyway, for very similar reasons. 

Donghyuck scoffed. "That's rude.I may live in a dump, but I have class." 

Dongyoung stayed quiet, but he felt his eyes crinkle a bit, like there might be flies rammed beneath his skin that fluttered about and kept his lashes unstill. He was amused, and he felt it, too. 

"Do you like video games?" Donghyuck asked him, to which he didn't really have an answer for. He thought for a moment before responding.

"If I'm winning," he admitted. 

"Guess you'll have a bad time against me."

Donghyuck was a huge hypocrite, what with him being the sorest loser ever. But he had been a good competitor in the arcade, and an even better companion. Dongyoung couldn't help but smile. Say nothing, he thought. Don't get him worked up. 

They got off at this street, with pavement separated from the apartments by a wire mesh. The rain had slipped away just like that- they were completely dry, still, though droplets hung off the links in the fence and hugged the wires so they wouldn't fall. The concrete was dark grey. 

The apartment blocks looked similar to the ones where Dongyoung lived, like huge shoeboxes turned vertically, with all the balconies and windows facing outwards. Crumbling yellow paint, brown bricks that were probably called red in the architect's plan. 

He followed Donghyuck's lead, just calmer- no skipping down the street for him. 

Especially not with all these groups of teenagers about. Some of them looked older than him, but most were around Donghyuck's grade, though he sort of brushed past each one. 

He lived on the fourth floor, nice and high up, and wow, those stairs. 

The door seemed elongated, just as the corridor had. It was odd- it mirrored Dongyoung's place so perfectly, yet it was stretched. Like someone dragged it across in photoshop. Even the door had chipped paint. Donghyuck rattled it before taking his keys out, testing how locked it was. 

"Hm, no one's home," he said, the keys in his hand jingled- there were three of them on a jumpring, and a Domo Kun keyring, and one of those Eiffel Tower ones that tended to stab you through your pockets. 

"Who else lives here?" Dongyoung asked as the door opened inwards, immediately to the sitting room. It smelled like bleach and metal, and was very, very cluttered. 

Donghyuck dropped his keys in a bowl by the door. It looked like it would once hold cereal, not at all decorative like the ones you usually see in halls. There were no other sets of keys there, just his- the bottom of the bowl had been dunked in dust, or something. Maybe the milk cartons were full of it. It and spiders, that would find so many hiding places in just the sitting room. "My mam, my sister," he said, then proceeded to laugh shortly. It started off amused but the aftertaste was bitter. It lingered until he spoke again. "Sorry, this is a shit hole. I just wanted to hang out, but I have no money to spend."   
Dongyoung felt almost mean for even thinking that it was messy. It wasn't that bad, really. Just some missing sofa cushions(they were actually on the floor) and that. "It's not a shit hole," he said, plainly so he wouldn't mess up. He was pretty glad to be here. With Donghyuck. 

"You're alright at lying," Donghyuck seemed to admit. Being plain was what Dongyoung was best at; he could say anything plainly, if he didn't say something insulting first. That was all there was to it. No looking to the left, no frowning slightly, nice and easy. 

"You're not," Dongyoung said, "you're actually really easy to read most of them time," and it was true, from what he could read of the situation. Even then, he wasn't so sure if he could catch Donghyuck in a lie or what- so far Donghyuck has had no reason to lie, no reason to twist his words, mostly stating the obvious truth, and opinions. So Dongyoung couldn't really tell, when it came down to it. But Donghyuck was full of these gestures that seemed to happen without being forced to. He'd reveal himself when lying, surely?

Again, there was no way to tell. It was odd to consider. 

Donghyuck brought them to his bedroom, which was crazy neat. Stacks of mangas stood at the foot of his bed, or seemingly towered. He had a glasses case on his desk, which was purposely parallel to the way his school copies were organised. Everything was straight lines and empty space. 

But there were posters. Mostly, of shounen guys posing with swords, or some artsy looking ones that Dongyoung didn't have the capacity, nor the knowledge, to categorize. And then, there was one of some boy group poking out from behind his wardrobe, and it seemed to make Donghyuck cringe when he saw it. 

Dongyoung didn't think about that one for a while. He didn't assume things- that'd be hypocritical. 

"This is neat," Dongyoung said, trying to make a pun. He had always been bad at shooting the bull, and it continued to show. 

Donghyuck clearly hadn't thought he'd have the humour to say funny things intentionally, because he watched with Dongyoung with owl eyes, and it occurred to Dongyoung that maybe he was waiting for a realisation that he'd just accidently  made a joke or something. 

Then Donghyuck laughed. Jealousy twisted in Dongyoung's stomach, followed by an odd sense of pride. "I cleaned it yesterday," he told Dongyoung, "but it's usually clean anyway."

Maybe he'd been planning on asking Dongyoung over. Maybe that was why he'd cleaned up. 

Dongyoung didn't like to assume things, again, but the thought... well. 

"It's nice," Dongyoung told him. He walked over to the desk, which was opposite his bed, and the window. The light slotted in and made a rectangle that fell off the edge of the wood and onto the floor, like a yellow tablecloth. "I didn't know you wore glasses?" 

"Just for reading, really. They're sorta ugly," Donghyuck laughed and picked up the case. It opened with a snap, he really did have circle frames, like some cartoon character or anime girl. They were shiny, black, and thin, with those clear ovals that sit on the bridge of your nose. "But I make them look irresistible, of course," he made no move to put them on. He really did think they were ugly, huh.

"Do it then," said Dongyoung, "show me."

Donghyuck laughed, surprised, but he didn't object. He wiped the lenses with an oddly textured handkerchief, which had been in the case, even though they were spotless anyway, and then he slotted the tongs of the glasses over the tops of his ears. 

"Oh," Dongyoung blinked.

They made Donghyuck's eyes substantially bigger, more sparkly somehow. He looked so much like those kids in Dongyoung's class that refused to give people the homework answers. Their calculator batteries would run out the fastest, they'd have piles of discarded casios in their lockers. Donghyuck didn't really look that much different to be honest, but his attitude changed as soon as they were on- stiff shoulders up to his ears, uncharacteristically quiet. He was self conscious, Dongyoung realised. 

Which was weird. They were only glasses, after all. 

(and they looked nice)

Donghyuck fiddles with one of the tongs, adjusted them on his ears. "I haven't worn them since school, they're really not as sexy as I remembered," he had a hand mirror on top of his wardrobe, because of course he did, and it was facedown on the wood. He reached for it and looked. The plastic of the mirror was so thin it was almost translucent, and you could see his skin ghosting through in little traces. The surface of it was scratchy from the wood. His brows furrowed as he examined himself more; fixed his hair so it looked much the same. There was no fixing that hair, really. 

When it became evident that Dongyoung was biting his tongue, Donghyuck put the mirror back down and pushed the glasses up his forehead, effectively ruining his hair again. They sat on his scalp like sunglasses. "Once I tripped and fell in the school corridor, and my glasses smashed everywhere, and my mam got so pissy- she made me pay for new ones out of my pocket money. I couldn't read manga for weeks."

"Your poor teachers," Dongyoung said. He had been eyeing the bed, and finally decided to take a seat on it. It had loads of pillows where the mattress ended and the wall began. 

"They were pissy too, just because I couldn't do any of the class work," Donghyuck sat next to them. They were far apart, enough so that Dongyoung could put his hands facing outwards on the duvet, wiggle his fingers, and he wouldn't brush off anything. He liked it more this way, most of the time. 

He used to be really affectionate with Sooyoung, before she started taking this as flirting. And then he stopped. And then he was scared to touch Yuta, because Yuta was good looking and Dongyoung was gay and too nervous about other boys finding out. And then he had no one, and kept his hands to himself. It felt better that way; easier. 

"Did you just sit there then, not doing anything?" he asked, and they were still just sitting there. Eyes fixed on the opposite wall. A row of eyes looked back, all shiny and bubbly, with long eyebrows, triangle noses, sometimes the shounen boys had cross shaped scars on their cheeks. Dongyoung didn't know a lot about anime, but he recognised one of the guys from some show Yuta raved nostalgia about. 

"I was eight and they couldn't just not let me do anything, so they assigned this boy to read stuff out to me when we did assignments. I can't remember his name, but he had an annoying face, and he'd read it all out wrong so I'd fail."

"What a fucking dick," Dongyoung said, because any other statement would probably come off as patronising. And really, he hadn't thought about it. About how he let a small part of his insufferable side slip. A slice of bread with claws. 

Donghyuck grinned at him, sharp and shiny and amused. "Did you just say a  _ bad word _ ? My my, Dongyoung, you really are too much for me."

"Two bad words," Dongyoung corrected, and Donghyuck laughed, nudging his side with his elbow. 

"Even worse. What happened to the bunny I thought I knew?"

Soojung, Sooyoung- they both used to call him a bunny- all the Soos basically. He hated it at the time, just because his teeth were a little pointy, so what? "Bunny..." he mumbled. 

"You look like a bunny," Donghyuck told him, dead serious. They were looking at each other now, heads slightly turned on their necks. 

Dongyoung huffed and ran a hand through his hair, but it just fell back where it had been before, "I don't want to look like a bunny," he said. 

"Too bad, you already do, Bunny-young."

Dongyoung gave him a look before slumping back into the pillows. His muscles hadn't realised their soreness until that moment, and it almost pained him, until the tension wrung out and he was lying back like there wasn't a bone in his body, like he was a drape. 

"What, would you prefer if I called you Jaehyun?" Donghyuck asked, slumping back too. He took his phone out, which was one of those small Samsungs with the font size adjusted to 'Fucking Huge'. He really did hate wearing glasses. He scrolled through his music app for a bit before putting on some loud, some squeaky, some bright pop song in English. 

Dongyoung told him he hated both of those names. Call him Dongyoung. 

Donghyuck went on with his bullshit for a bit longer, and then he stopped, and they were just listening to this tinny pop music. Dongyoung could pick out all the cheesy words like 'love' and 'kiss' and shit like that, but everything else didn't register to his ears. He didn't care anyway. He was sleepy, so sleepy...

"Are you hungry?" Donghyuck asked him, right when his eyes had fluttered closed. He snapped them back open so it looked like he'd only blinked weirdly or something. He wasn't really hungry, but whatever. Donghyuck seemed to be though, otherwise he wouldn't have asked. 

"Yeah," he said, and Donghyuck stood up, so he felt inclined to do the same. He was still taller, but not weirdly so. LIke he couldn't see the full line of Donghyuck's scalp, but he could see his eyelashes in straight lines, like a fan, instead of curling. 

They went to the kitchen, which had two big sliding doors and the far wall, and there was a balcony. It was sparse, with a single chair that was half metal and half wicker. It was damp from the earlier rain, little droplets had collected between the knots of the woven plastic. The view was just of more of the same apartment blocks, though there was a small field at the center of all of them, and some kids were playing a match with jerseys and all. You could hear the occasional shout or cheer from below. 

The kitchen itself was actually clean enough, in comparison to the sitting room. There were magnets on the fridge, that held up a baby picture of Donghyuck, and he had the chubbiest face and the stubbiest nose, in dungarees covered with mud. Dongyoung smiled at it, almost without realising. 

And then Donghyuck opened the fridge. It was on the emptier side, and he was aware of it. "What would you like?" he asked, the cold air floated out and hit Dongyoung. 

"I don't mind."

Donghyuck hummed and opened the freezer, where there was a half eaten tub of mint ice cream. He fished it out with two fingers that almost froze off, and showed it to Dongyoung happily. Mint ice cream- he knew it was Dongyoung's favourite. "Is this alright?"

"Of course," Dongyoung replied, and Donghyuck seemed pleased as he stabbed two tablespoons into the ice cream, which was so frozen that the metal stood up straight like totems. 

They flailed about on the sitting room's sofa until they were comfy enough, and then Donghyuck stuck some reality show crap on the tv. There was a Playstation 2 wired up to the thing, spotless though it seemed well used, no dust. 

The ice cream was soft like kalfee. It evaporated quickly in Dongyoung's mouth, and he had to reach over to Donghyuck's side constantly to get another spoonful, as he had been the one holding the tub. 

Nothing changed, the later it got. Just the tub got emptier and emptier until there was nothing left, nothing to even scrape up with the edge of a spoon. 

No one even came home, even though it was dark. 

Donghyuck's head tipped back on the third episode of his anime boxset, and he let out a soft snore through his upturned nose. Dongyoung froze. He never knew what to do in these kinds of situations. When Yuta fell asleep first at their sleepovers, Dongyoung would just shake him until he woke up, or he'd go on his phone. But he didn't even have the wifi, so this got boring very quickly. He went through his gallery a good three times before switching it into sleep mode. 

Dongyoung snored again, but it was more like filtered breathing. It was an uncomfortable position to sleep in; it'd kill your neck, and for a second, Dongyoung felt sympathy. He pushed the side of Donghyuck's face with a fingertip until it flopped onto one of the sofa cushions. There, he thought. 

And then he got a look. 

He didn't mean to be creepy, but he looked anyway, so maybe he was- Donghyuck had a soft face, and it looked softer when featureless, when he just had his eyes closed and his mouth making a small 'o' shape. His waterline curved prettily, with the few lashes stemming from it pointing downwards. 

Dongyoung looked away. He should be off soon, he decided. But he couldn't leave when Donghyuck was asleep, so he stayed there, watching the stupid show because there was only one other thing to behold, and he didn't want to be a weirdo, so he couldn't go near it. 

It wasn't some revelation that Donghyuck was pretty. He'd known. 

Donghyuck awoke an episode later, and he didn't move for a few seconds before reaching a hand to his mouth to yawn. Dongyoung looked at him, his mistiness. His voice was thick with sleep when he spoke, he said, "Jesus, that was a good nap."

"Seemed that way," Dongyoung replied, moving a bit away from him, though it went unnoticed. 

"Sorry if it was boring for you, I just get so tired after working 'nd all..." he yawned again, loudly, with the shutter of teeth at the end. "Hey, if you give me your number or something, then we could start hanging out on weekends instead."

Dongyoung felt his eyebrows raise. He didn't mind hanging out on weekdays, not really. It had happened twice, but it was worth the exhaustion both times. Well, he thought it would be, tomorrow in work, though the thought of that fresh rubber smell made his skin crawl. He gave Donghyuck his phone, which was warm from being in his hand the whole time, and probably sweaty. Oh well. 

He should've had better judgement when it came to things like this. At the time, he wasn't thinking about how much spam would be showing up in his notifications. 

Donghyuck gave him a grin before looking down at the phone screen, tapping his number in, "you'd better text me," he said as he handed the phone back. 'Hyuck', the contact info read. "Or I'll come in off hours and try on every shoe in the store."

Dongyoung, out of fear, promised him he would. 

 

~~~~

 

He didn't text Donghyuck until he got home. 

_ 'happy birthday' _ \- it said, nothing more. 

He wasn't incompetent, he knew to use lowercase letters, and to shorten things when he could. He mostly texted Yuta- just snaps of whatever was around, sometimes with those cheap built in filters. Often without. And Yuta would send selfies because that was the kind of guy he was- a Jaehyun. 

After sending, he lay back down on his quilt with his shoes still on, so there'd be mud tracks on his sheets, petal goop. He sighed, not wanting to look at his phone. 

One shoe kicked off. The other, thud, on the floor. 

It took a little bit longer to get a response, colour Donghyuck surprised. He had imagined that Donghyuck would eagerly respond with those dancing lady emojis, or something. 

_ 'not m ybirthday _ ,' was all the text said. Dongyoung sighed. He'd  been watching the chat for so long, and all he got was three wrongly spaced words. Not even an emoji. And then-  _ 'my bday is tmrrw'.  _

He scoffed and locked his phone for the next thirty seconds, but he just couldn't help himself, and began typing back. 

'cant u reschedule it?' 

Dongyoung was, after all, meant to hang out with Yuta tomorrow. They hadn't seen each other in a while. Yuta always seemed busy; he went back to Osaka to flirt with girls, then came home and landed a small string of dates, who he treated like reality tv show contestants and compared them all to each other. Who had the best personality, the cutest laugh, the longest hair? 

Fashion I can fix, he'd say, it doesn't matter if they wear ugly clothes like you. Actually, it doesn't matter if you wear ugly clothes anyway, girls don't care about that kind of thing if you have a nice face.

Do I have a nice face? Dongyoung asked, mildly pink. He didn't particularly care about Yuta's opinion, but also, he didn't particularly care about anyone's, and so it was all worth knowing to him no matter who it came from. 

Yuta had shrugged. I don't know dude, he said. Then, that girl Sooyoung's into you, right? She's pretty hot. It must be your face then. It couldn't be your personality. 

Dongyoung had shrugged. Like Yuta, he could find no reason to care anyway. There were more concerning obstacles when it came to attraction, obstacles that only Dongyoung seemed to face, and that was the problem. 

He would go to Yuta's tomorrow, and pretend to be interested in girls' facebook pages while Yuta went through a list of increasingly misogynistic pet names. Then they would play Crash Bandicoot Racing and Yuta would win. Dongyoung was looking forward to it- he always did. He had a soft spot for Yuta, even if he never showed it at all. 

It was really a wonder how they remained friends for the past two years, but that was a different story altogether. 

'ugh rly' came Donghyuck's text. 

'im busy,' Dongyoung sent, then after some contemplation, added a small 'sry' too. He was a bit. Not that he'd done anything wrong, just... it seemed like Donghyuck would take it as some form of rejection, when that wasn't the case if he was honest with himself. He rarely was. If only Sooyoung would interpret his refusals as rejection, too. It'd make the whole thing easier. 

He reached over to his desk drawer and took out his old DSi, figuring that if he was going to be sitting with an open chat log all day he might as well do something in the meantime. 

It was spotless. The plastic didn't have a single crack, unlike the ones of many of the other kids around the block, who used to put stickers on the top surface of the DS. 

The battery ran out immediately. Lazily, Dongyoung just shoved it back in the drawer. As if he could be bothered to look for his charger right now. 

'nowww thati think abou t it....................... isnt my bday on saturdy?? oops' 

Dongyoung smiled. 'what age r u going? 20, or am i counting wrong?'

'asdfghj idk wHAT ur talkin ab out!!! im 16 on saturday thats all'

'ill b there', Dongyoung sent. And that was it, really. 

 

~~~~

 

"And this one's Miyazawa-" Yuta paused just as he was about to slide a thumb over the screen, and looked at Dongyoung. "Hey, are you even listening?"

Dongyoung, who hadn't been listening, hummed. There was only so many pictures of girls you could look at before you started spacing out. The current picture was of one wearing a beret, coffee cup in her right hand that she held like it was too hot to touch, and her cheeks minimised with her smile. Her hair was long, black and shiny. Many of the girls looked like this. Either Yuta had a type, or he'd come across a cloning machine in Osaka. "She's cute," Dongyoung said, which was the most inoffensive thing to say. If he called her sexy or something, it would be out of character. Really, anything was-- but Yuta didn't know who he'd been hearing all this from anyway. 

He looked mildly pleased, "yeah," he said, and looked euphoric for a moment. Then he blinked and swiped to another photo of this Miyazawa girl. She was sitting on some bench next to a friend, and her handbag was in her lap, with about twenty keyrings spilling out from the jumpring on it. Of course, Dongyoung thought. Yuta had probably bought her one too. Probably, he stole one when she wasn't looking and startled her by dangling it just in front of her eyes; they'd laugh together. "She's a real doll," Yuta said- after all, he had picked up most of his korean through translated shoujos and dramas. Sometimes he came out with these old timey phrases that poked at Dongyoung's gag reflex. He wasn't always bothered to slag him over it, so he didn't. 

"How do you know her?" Dongyoung asked, suppressing a yawn, even though he wasn't so bored, and he didn't mind really. 

Yuta's eyes brightened so much it looked like they'd fade into nothing. "Oh, that," he said, three, two, one, "she's my sister's friend's cousin's older sister."

Dongyoung nodded; go on. 

"I don't know. She's just. Different? From the girls I usually go for, but y'know, everyone needs a change once in awhile. Actually, she's a bit like Sooyoung, but less annoying," Yuta swiped but no more photos showed. He'd gone through her weibo page, evidently. He pulled up a chat, and Miyazawa's name was on the header, followed by a thousand and five musical note emoticons. 'u up?' he typed, even though it wasn't all that late. 

The sky was bright and airy, properly summer. Dongyoung watched the clouds out the window blow by, until the sky was clear. There was a red pin prick so, so distant, and it flashed, the only satellite in the sky. 

After fiddling with his phone for a while, Yuta put it away and asked a question- "Any girls for you, Donny?"

Donny. "I've been busy," Dongyoung replied. He had been busy, in his defense. Sometimes his summer job tired the fuck out of him, but it consistently remained better than school. 

It was always a solitary thing to push through, and he rarely needed anyone for it. He probably talked to Mr. Lee more than his mother. 

Everything went on. 

Yuta nodded, clearly he didn't expect much else because he'd already grabbed a PS2 controller. Dongyoung didn't have many conquests to speak of, after all. None, in fact. And somehow neither of them were too bored with how things unfolded in each other's' lives. "Dude, when you're finished up your job, right? We'll go on a major heist. Wingmans for life."

After Dongyoung unscrambled the meaning of what Yuta had just said, he replied, "What about Miyazawa?"

Yuta's eyes widened considerably. He crunched at the buttons on his controller with his thumbs, they were so old the plasticy sound came out subdued. Dongyoung kicked one of the controllers over with his foot, adamant not to get off the couch. On the screen, Crash Bandicoot was, indeed, Racing. "Oh man," he said, looking euphoric again, "she's a real hottie."

Dongyoung rolled his eyes but it went unnoticed- the race had begun. 

And Yuta won, won, won. 

 

Two hours later, they ended up carrying an empty shopping basket around a supermarket. Yuta's mother had bribed them to go shopping for her- she said they could use the change however they liked, and who were they to pass up such an offer? 

The sky was dark at that point, the aisles a ghost town. 

It was all very off putting. Not the best atmosphere for grocery list reading(and subsequently, checking off). 

Dongyoung surveyed the freezer aisle. He had a simple objective; acquire kentucky fried chicken tenders. There were blue boxes of frozen fish, breaded. There were red boxes of waffles, gridded. And after some poking around while kneeling uncomfortably, Dongyoung uncovered his treasure at the back of the freezer, where it was so cold that the ice caps could be conserved. 

"Kim! Dong! Young!" screeched a voice. 

Dongyoung dropped the box, which slid across the floor and left ice particles in its wake. He twisted his head to and fro, and saw three people at the end of the aisle, one that was marching over to him quickly. 

It was Donghyuck. And behind him, was a boy with a painfully uniform bowl cut, and an extremely glamorous girl who was brave with her makeup. 

Donghyuck towered over Dongyoung, who remained kneeling, as the cold air escaped the freezer through the door he was holding open. Donghyuck was wearing this huge, black hoodie with thumbholes. If his shins had eyes, they'd be eye level with Dongyoung. 

He stood up, and then he was taller than all three of them. The freezer door slammed shut, but it wasn't clear if he'd been the one to close it or not. 

"Hey," Donghyuck said, and then he seemingly remembered that he had company. "Dongyoung, this is Jaemin and Yerim," his voice came out deflated. 

The girl, Yerim, had an odd sheen on her pupils, like they'd been hand polished. She looked Dongyoung over, and her lips tugged into a small smile. Jaemin elbowed her, to which she suppressed a laugh and stood on his shoe. 

Dongyoung caught all of this. 

"Oh-! There you are!" And then Yuta was there, too, ogling at Yerim. She ogled back. The situation was so cringeworthy that it gave Dongyoung meningitis symptoms, in that he wanted to bury his head somewhere dark and scream. 

"Um, this is Yuta," Dongyoung said, out of obligation more than anything else. 

"You don't have to introduce me you know, I can introduce myself..." said Yuta, getting eyefucked by Yerim and eyemurdered by Jaemin, all at once. 

There was a pause, in which Yerim and Jaemin started chattering, and Donghyuck stood awkwardly, and Yuta stared at Yerim, and Dongyoung leaned slightly closer to him and muttered "remember Miyazaki, for the love of god."

Yuta ignored him and stepped into Jaemin and Yerim's conversation, effectively leaving Dongyoung in the dust. Donghyuck was also in the dust, it seemed. 

"I need to go to the sweets aisle," Donghyuck told him. Dongyoung was all too eager to leave the swingers in the freezer section, so he tagged along(not that he had much choice in the matter. Gummy worms were on his wishlist, after all). 

The place was only crawling with your occasional ant, and tumbleweeds. Quietness had its own presence. It yanked at Dongyoung's vocal chords, but he wasn't obedient, so he said nothing. 

"So, do you come here often?" Donghyuck asked, then proceeded to let out a harsh bark of laughter. Dongyoung felt kinda sweaty and weird, and he couldn't respond, even to innuendos. He'd heard most of the ones in the book from Sooyoung, but mostly he'd act naive. 

"Yuta lives nearby," he said mildly. He felt Donghyuck watch him for a brief moment, and then the eyes snapped straight ahead as they rounded a corner, onto the cereal section. The box mascots all stared at them as they walked by. "What brings you here?"

They reached the confectionary aisle, and Donghyuck swooped his arm along the shelves so random packets of sweets dropped into his basket as he walked by, "my love of sugar," he said with a grin.  

"Same, basically," Dongyoung said, his feet were sore, given the walk up and the inevitable walk back. His shoes had never felt more broken down.

Later on, he had to practically cut an umbilical chord between Yerim and Yuta to pry them apart. It was so cold outside that Dongyoung's hands went numb, even in his pockets. 

He examined Yuta, who swayed as he walked. Romantics tended to do this, like they were always lost. 

"Remember Miyazawa," Dongyoung said, even though he shouldn't have to anyway. These things always seemed to happen. 

Yuta huffed, "I always remember her," he said, "there's no way I'd forget."

"What happened back there, then?" 

They passed an empty bus stop, and it looked so lonely that Dongyoung averted his eyes. If he looked distant enough, on the horizon, he could see the tip of Yuta's house, with hits invisible shingles.

Yuta thought for a moment. "Absolutely nothing," he said, looking euphoric once again. 

 

~~~~

 

'ur hou se saturday>>?' 

Dongyoung glanced at the text often. First of all, no, not his 'hou se'. Secondly, what was up with those symbols? 

When his mother shouted at him to bring her a hot water bottle, he put his phone back in his pocket. 

Their kitchen was subject to much limescale. The kettle had long since seen its best days, and it rattled on its cradle as it boiled. Steam puffed outwards with a shrill ascending noise, and Dongyoung was extra careful when pouring it- he had burned himself before, after all. He wouldn't want a repeat, though the carefulness seemed to make his hands shake even more, if he was honest with himself. 

He plugged the hot water bottle and slipped the cover over it, steeling himself to walk into his mother's room. His parents'. 

She had an extravagant, cushiony headboard, that was padded with a slope of pillows. She was propped up against them, nightdress trailing along the outline of her body. 

Her face was as worn as Dongyoung's shoes, and about as leathery as them(they weren't leather in the slightest). She was going pale from lack of sunlight, like there was cotton wool insulating her guts. 

"Thank you, deary," she said when Dongyoung didn't throw the bottle over, but actually placed it by her side. The spot next to her was empty. His father hadn't returned in a while. Only when he didn't have anywhere else to stay, Dongyoung supposed. 

"It's no problem," he assured her, and attempted to leave. For once, she let him slip out the door. 

On the other side of it, he breathed shortly, because the dragon was satisfied for now, even though the moment wouldn't last and she'd snap. 

He checked his phone again- no new messages. 

'id rather not' he sent to Hyuck. It took a few more moments for a text to filter through afterwards, and he'd been anticipating it. 

'y nott?'

'its ugly' Dongyoung was embarrassed of the place- the plastered ceilings and the empty cupboards and the implications. He hated his boring room, too, that dragged him back every night. After all- wasn't hanging out with Donghyuck meant to keep him away from the place?

'pllllllssssssss i rly wanna c i!!t! dw im not picky or nythin'

Dongyoung sighed as he tapped back a quick 'fiiine'. What a pushover, he thought as he retreated to his room. Maybe he'd root through his drawers for his charger now. 

 

~~~~

 

He had sent Donghyuck the address, who showed up to his door only a bit early. 

If a bit meant Dongyoung hadn't brushed his hair, his teeth, or the dust off all his earthly possessions. Also, he was in his pyjamas. So there was that. 

Donghyuck stifled a laugh when he saw the plaid pyjama set, with its childish buttons and all. "You look like that kid in Home Alone," he said, full of wisdom as always. He himself wasn't dressed too shabby- he'd ditched the emo hoodie from last time, instead going with an Atari shirt and loose, brightwashed jeans. Dongyoung let him in, despite his better judgement. It felt like inviting a vampire into your house. There was no getting rid of these sorts of people, he decided when Donghyuck stomped by and into the sitting room. 

"Good morning to you too," Dongyoung said grumpily. He felt... unclean. He hadn't even cracked open the deodorant yet. And then he realised; it was one in the afternoon. Holy christ. He prayed the wallclock was inaccurate, but even the house's shitty furniture had to work sometimes, and this was one of those times, seeing as Donghyuck didn't look like he was going to murder someone, unlike other early mornings. He looked as chipper as ever, in fact. It was that easy smile that used to drive Dongyoung up a wall. 

"Yeah, yeah... hey, what's the wifi password?"

Dongyoung sighed and told him. "I really should get dressed," he said, while Donghyuck tapped away at his phone blissfully. 

"Why?" Donghyuck asked, actually walking past him to plop down on the sofa, which sunk around him.  He looked nice in the mornings(even though it was the afternoon), he looked nice in Dongyoung's house. 

Dongyoung tried to ignore this as he closed the front door, then stood idly. "Because I'm in my pyjamas."

"So what? We're not going anywhere," Donghyuck had supposedly decided this before even showing up. He didn't have a big or anything with him, and probably no money too. 

Dongyoung gave in and sat next to him, and it was hard to see the tv since Donghyuck's shoes were covering it- he had his legs up on the coffee table, all in the way. It was very distracting, but whatever. Dongyoung wasn't about to say anything. He sat there for a long while, not even watching the tv, doing nothing. He still felt asleep, to be entirely honest. 

"Yah, Dongyoung, you're giving me a dead leg."

"Oh, sorry," Dongyoung moved his leg over a little bit. 

"Yah, Dongyoung, you're too far away now."

Dongyoung looked at him oddly, "what do you want from me?" but he moved a bit closer anyway- they were too close, he knew, but it would be even more awkward if he shifted over now. 

"Nothing," Donghyuck murmured. It was too bright for this. They could see each other. There was a pause, then, "yah, Dongyoung."

"What is it this time?" Dongyoung snapped, then when Donghyuck blinked at him he felt the guilt rush through his stomach, filling it up until he felt sick and bad. 

"Nothing, don't worry about it," Donghyuck said softly. 

Dongyoung turned to look at him properly, just because he could. "Look, I'm sorry for sna-"

He was cut off very unfortunately, because Donghyuck had kissed him. Like... really- he'd done it, full contact. It shouldn't have been as surprising as it was. Despite everything, Dongyoung figured they  _ had  _ grown close over their time working together, even though a lot of that was because of some birthdays and arcade games. Donghyuck was always really sweet with him, you could tell- it just made sense, even if Dongyoung honestly hadn't considered it before, like,  _ at all _ . 

Donghyuck's face was so soft to hold, and he was so warm, his hair was kinda greasy but that didn't have to matter. The angle was so awkward, it made Dongyoung want to cry a little bit. He practically had to unhinge his neck to kiss back. It was a huge effort. Again, he couldn't exactly move. It was hard to do anything in this situation but keep kissing, not because it was magical and all-telling, but because when they broke apart they'd have stuff(and nothing) to say to each other. Also, it was sort of magical. It was Dongyoung's first time kissing a guy, after all. It had to be, bound to be. 

Donghyuck broke away with a happy sigh, always the most eager to talk of the two. "That was nice," he said, voice low and it did things, really. He still looked so composed. It was funny, in a way. 

"You sound surprised," said Dongyoung.

"Maybe I am," Donghyuck shrugged like it was some big secret, and shifted so his legs were lying across Dongyoung's lap, so they had a better angle. Dongyoung didn't give him enough credit, really. 

"You suck," he said, leaning in again. 

Donghyuck smirked. "Maybe I do. You'll have to figure that one out yourself."

"You always have to ruin the moment, don't you?" Dongyoung said, smiling so his stupid rabbit teeth were visible, he really wasn't as nervous as he thought he should be. Their foreheads were almost touching for christ's sake, and he just felt giddy. 

"It's what I'm best at," Donghyuck said, closing what little distance they had left. 

 

~~~~

 

On the last day of summer, which was a friday because weekends would no longer count, Dongyoung had a brown paper bag with him on the bus, with his black work shirt washed and folded and ironed. He took his earphones out of his pocket and gave that japanese tape a spin again. Johnny was blowing up his phone- he kept sending snaps of his antics with his korean friends, since he was leaving on sunday. He'd be back at winter break- that was what he'd assured everyone. Assured, because he would be missed. Dongyoung sighed as he went through all of them. He wasn't pissed off, he couldn't be. 

At Footlocker, Dahye was smacking gum at the cash register. She smiled at Dongyoung, even though she rarely smiled at all; she probably would feel guilty if she didn't, seeing as it was his last day and he still couldn't afford to spend his earnings on shoes just yet. He really didn't think he'd visit again just for the memories or whatever, because all the memories were just the same exact one. He'd sort shoeboxes and want to die while doing so, or he'd help customers and want to kill them to take their shoes. And his creepy boss would sometimes mistake him for that asshole in his class. And Donghyuck, god. 

Dongyoung found Mr. Lee in the back room, with his back all hunched in front of his monitor. He was watching this boy group video this time, murmuring to himself "slip ons, huh?", he was a real creep sometimes. Maybe a foot fetishist. When he looked up at Dongyoung, his eyes looked like they vaguely recognised him, face all blotchy and pink and cartoony with the heat that was always present in here. 

"I'm here to return my work uniform," Dongyoung told him, refraining from calling him 'sir'. He didn't exactly need a lecture about how they were all meant to be casual with each other "under this roof". He walked over and dropped the bag on the only empty spot on the desk, which was probably where Mr. Lee kept his dinner plates when he was eating. The rest of the space was occupied by various wires and papers and highlighters and printouts of shoes and colour samplers. 

"Right, thank you for your hard work, Jaehyun. You can always get your job back next summer if you ring in," Mr. Lee said, picking up the bag to test the weight. He really didn't trust Jaehyun, and no wonder. "

Dongyoung coughed. It must've set off a bell in Mr. Lee's head; employees probably did this a lot to remind him. 

"-Oh! Right! Here's this week's pay-" Mr. Lee took out his  _ own _ wallet, with its soft brown leather, and rifled through a huge wad of notes before handing some of them to Dongyoung. "Thank you again."

"No problem, Mr. Lee," and with that, Dongyoung took his leave. You couldn't really spend too long in places like that- you just couldn't. 

 

Outside the store, Donghyuck was chatting to Byulyi on her way into work. His eyes lit up when they met Dongyoung's, and Byulyi successfully brushed him off to head inside. 

"Hey, Dongyoung said, completely forgetting about his whole summer job, it was all just in the past now after all. 

Donghyuck threw an arm over his shoulder, "you wouldn't believe what I got," he said, starting to walk in some direction that seemed perfectly random to Dongyoung. 

"What is it?"

"Ta-da!" Donghyuck took a leaflet out of his pocket, it was brightly coloured and folded messy, so the creases had worn deep lines into the cardstock. "Two bowling games for the price of one! We've gotta go."

"Now?" Dongyoung asked, not entirely opposed to the idea. 

"Yeah, now. Look, I'll even pay for an air hockey game too, if you want."

Dongyoung  _ did _ like air hockey. "If you insist," he said. 

"I do insist. We're going."

They went.

**Author's Note:**

> I think this might be the only fully-fledged Dongyoung/Donghyuck story on the archive... lmao why do I do this to myself.  
> 1- The poster in Donghyuck's room is of SHINee  
> 2- The videos Mr. Lee watched; Gashina(though Sunmi didn't wear superstars I imagined the video was of her), Red Flavour, and Ko Ko Bop  
> 3- Donghyuck used to take ballroom, so he's pretty good at dancing, and he taught himself some choreo in his own time  
> 4- Dongyoung beats him at both bowling at air hockey  
> 5- Hope you guys liked it !!!  
> 6- Talk to me on twitter!!!!! @11dishwashers


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